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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23558044">Bird of Passage</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/moustache_bonnet/pseuds/moustache_bonnet'>moustache_bonnet</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, The Book of Dust - Philip Pullman</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abuse of Authority, Additional Warnings Apply, Alternate History, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Book: The Secret Commonwealth, Canon Compliant, Dark Academia, F/F, F/M, Fake Politics, Fake Science, Headcanon, His Dark Materials Spoilers, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Missing Scene, Multi, Nightmares, Oppressive regime, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Spy Story, Surveillance, Swearing, The Book of Dust Spoilers, Worldbuilding</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 18:13:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>42,437</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23558044</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/moustache_bonnet/pseuds/moustache_bonnet</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A worldbuilding story set pre- and during Phillip Pullman's The Secret Commonwealth explores the efforts of an Oakley Street spy, one Kat Miller, to help uncover a plot against her Office, the government, and--potentially--freedom itself.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Prelude</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Now, here's the thing. I have been planning Kat Miller's story for almost half a year, had three chapters written and then--nothing. Taking a breath, I abandoned her shenanigans and focused on a different fandom. Recently my muse came back to me and I have completely re-worked the plot. Everything was deleted except the first chapter and this prelude, and I'm starting over, hopeful to finish the barmaid's little adventure this time. I'm really excited about Kat as a character so I give you this snippet even before I know where the story will take me. If you're curious to discover more, head to my Tumblr (http://moustache-bonnet.tumblr.com/tagged/kat-miller).</p><p>All chapter illustrations are by the wonderful @pluviophilestarfox.tumblr.com (they're to be added continuously upon finalization).</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
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  <em>London, November 2005</em>
</p><p>Should one describe Wednesday afternoons at the <em>Murderess Row</em>, the most suitable of words would be: boring. The club would be half empty and overstaffed, but more than anything it would seem dreadfully quiet to anyone who had been in luck to visit it on a Friday or a Saturday. By mid-week, patrons had to dig much deeper into their pockets, so they drank less and argued seldom; there was no band until eight-o-clock, not even a cheap pianist to arouse the crowd. Not that the staff complained: the relaxed pacing of the evening's work provided the only opportunity to refuel before the upcoming week-end.</p><p>Behind the bar, Kat Miller, the all-knowing barmaid, occupied herself by polishing glasses. Her jay-dæmon, Atticus, balanced atop a water tap. The two of them were having a hushed conversation about some domestic issue when one of the waitresses tapped on the counter to draw their attention.</p><p>“Two gins and another Montjulien, please, darling.”</p><p>“Mallory, that's a third. You show me the person downing these because I sure as hell would like me such a generous date,” Kat snickered.</p><p>“We-e-ell,” Mallory sang, “actually, joke's on you, 'cos the person downing these won't take his eyes off you since he arrived.”</p><p>The barmaid turned her confused grimace from the polishing-cloth to her colleague.</p><p>“Second snug. The one with the owl.” The waitress gave her a cheeky smile and disappeared into the storeroom with her fox-dæmon at heel, presumably to have a quick smoke.</p><p>Curious, Kat moved behind the counter a little to have a better view of the space, the right side of which was lined with private booths. Her eyes wandered from guest to guest, vaguely recognizing every one, from the office workers and students, to the clerics who were enjoying themselves over their drinks of wine. But fair enough, one face was unknown to her--a lad of about thirty-five, with a dæmon in the form of a Little owl on his shoulder. As soon as he noticed her staring, he shifted his gaze down.</p><p>He wasn't her usual after-shift patron. Dressed a little out of place, in the western fashion; a white open-crown style hat resting by his elbow. He was handsome, too, with his untidy hair and distinctive eyes--large and pale, marked with laugh lines, and occasionally obscured by nervous, tic-like blinks. The eyes were also the most familiar. Like a dream you can't quite place.</p><p>A frown settled over her brow. She turned from the bar to the stock racks mounted on the wall behind it, fingers tracing the bottles to find the correct one as recollections of those doe-eyes flashed through her mind. She felt a stir of air and a prickle of claws on her shoulder.</p><p>“That's the guy from the rally,” Atticus whispered.</p><p>“And the market. Yes, I know,” she breathed and allowed herself another look. The man now glared into his glass, but the dæmon watched them closely. “Maybe it's a coincidence.”</p><p>“Right, because London is such a small town.”</p><p>"Have they been eyeing us like this the entire evening?"</p><p>"I guess so." Atticus snuck closer to her face. “She's so creepy.”</p><p>Kat returned to the basin with an elaborate bottle of brown liquid. Took a brandy snifter, polished it, and poured a good measure of the liquor. Then she reached for the jug of cheap gin, repeated the steps with two shot glasses. Arranged the drinks onto a tray. Wherever she went, whatever she did, the dæmon's hypnotic eyes were on her--unblinking, observing her every movement. Tension grew in her chest till it was hard to breathe. She hated to be played.</p><p>When Mallory re-emerged, Kat said, "Mal, sweet, leave the Montjulien here. I'll take it to him myself."</p><p>“Aright,” she giggled. Kat scoffed and waved her off with the rest of the order.</p><p>Atticus clicked his beak. “Are you crazy? What if he's dangerous?”</p><p>She felt him shudder, which was unusual for most of their lives, it was him who would get them in trouble. But it wasn't like she took a risk here--the house was still full and if not the dozens of guests, Mallory would certainly be watching them all the time as not to miss anything exciting. Kat was certain he was nothing to worry about. Maybe a forgotten moneylender collecting his debt; or a friend of a friend to whom she wasn't acquainted yet.</p><p>She took the drink and made her way across the locale. Only then the owl-dæmon turned and alerted her person. The man looked up, with the sort of a lazy attention of someone who preferred his cognac over his water.</p><p>“Your drink, sir,” Kat announced, dumping the glass on the table in a very impolite manner, almost spilling its content. Not missing a beat, she added, "Got a free spot?"</p><p>"Not really, Ma'am," he said in a distinctive new danish accent.</p><p>“Thank you.” She sat opposite the man, prompting a sigh to escape his lips. No that he wasn't used to this kind of unlady-like behaviour, or whatever one would like to call it, but Katalin Miller butting in on him was the last thing he expected to deal with on his night off and out.</p><p>“Now, I'm not known to be shy around lads, but with you I can't tell whether to be flattered or concerned--the big-eyed dæmon of yours eyeballing me like that,” Kat said.</p><p>The man's eyebrows shot up. “'Beg your pardon?”</p><p>“What is she staring at me for?” Kat pointed with her chin, words sharp. She leaned a little closer to the stranger, catching hint of a delicious cologne. Her blood stirred. Atticus opened his wings in distress--contradictory emotions disagreed with him.</p><p>“She's an <em>owl</em>. They tend to stare," the man said.</p><p>Kat shook her head. “No. You've been sneaking around for some time now. What do you want--<em>who</em> do you work for?”</p><p>“'M sorry, Ma'am, you have to have me mixed up with somebody.”</p><p>“Surely not. I've seen you around. You got a very <em>particular</em> face--”</p><p>“Particular?” His mouth twitched before it widened into a smile. Grinning, he prodded the owl-dæmon with the tip of his finger. “You hear that, Stella? A <em>particular</em> face.”</p><p>The bird swiveled her head back and gave him an unamused look.</p><p>“I meant unique,” Kat clarified.</p><p>“Yes, that's what particular <em>means</em> and it won't make what you just said and how you said it any less borderline insultin'.”</p><p>The little flush of embarrassment that spread across her cheeks was almost invisible under the dim lights. “I'm sorry. Okay? I'm sorry. Tell me. Give me something. Is it Terry? You work for Terry, right? Well, tell him I'm gonna get him the money back when I--”</p><p>He squinted at her with his mouth agape as she rambled on. She spoke fast and loud, which seemed to have a sobering effect on the man. He rubbed his face with both hands, stifling a soft laugh, then raised a palm to signal a pause. “Ma'am please. I don't know nothin' about no Terry fella, but I sure won't mind you tellin' me about him later,” he said.</p><p>“What the fuck does that mean?” she enquired harshly.</p><p>From an inside pocket of his vest he produced a badge. Kat recognized the compass rose cross in the middle of it and could feel her dæmon's delicate heart slam against his ribcage almost as hard as her own had.</p><p>“Detective Sergeant Horowitz, State Police,” the man stated.</p><p>“Baszmeg.” <em>Fuck me</em>. The curse rolled off her tongue unconsciously.</p><p>It made the detective smile again. He tried to let the reaction go unnoticed by looking away, but when he turned back, a shadow of a smirk still hovered under the surface.</p><p>“So now what, you gonna arrest me for taking up your personal space?” Kat leaned back to rest against the upholstering of the snug. She needed some kind of support, unsure of what to expect from this bizarre situation.</p><p>He cleared his throat. “Trust me if I say I was only here to enjoy my drink, Ma'am, but since you crashed my little party, I might as well take an advantage of it, how does that sound?” It was a genuine question, but because she remained mute, he went on, “Ms Miller, 'twas brought to my attention that you're the one to find if a man needs information. Is that correct?”</p><p>So he <em>had</em> been tracking her. Even knew her bloody name. Recovering from the initial shock, she answered with a question of her own, “How does a New Dane get to work for the Brytish State Police?”</p><p>“Texan. By being very particular about his job. Can you answer the question, please?”</p><p>“Aren't you a wee bit young for a Sergeant?”</p><p>“Ma'am--”</p><p>Kat chuckled. She liked him. “Depends."</p><p>"Depends on what?"</p><p>"What kind of information does the man need.”</p><p>“Now we're gettin' somewhere, good. You heard about the break in at the Office of Inquisition? Some two months ago?"</p><p>"Everybody had heard about it. What's up with that?"</p><p>"We don't know so far. The Director says nothin' was taken, but the place had been vandalized and he would like it <em>very much</em> if the perpetrator faced rightful charges."</p><p>“Oh, I'm sure,” she acknowledged. Behind a blank façade, her mind raced. Nothing? Just how important are the documents they had taken, if that piece-of-shit of a Director keeps them secret from the State Police? It almost made her regret she hadn't broken the rules and hadn't had a look when given the chance.</p><p>The detective continued, "That's why I'm here. You're known to be… around people we suspect might have somethin' to do with the deed. I thought, perhaps, you heard a thing or two?"</p><p>From a briefcase by his side, which she didn't notice before, he fished out a battered file. Spreading it out on the table, he offered six photograms for inspection. They were headshots. Kat scoffed. Anarchists, the lot of them. <em>Everybody blames everything on the Anarchists these days</em>, she thought, inwardly amused. The fact two of those faces happened to belong to her actual partners in crime was a minor detail.</p><p>“I'm afraid not. Haven't seen much of these folk lately. Which you should know is true, since you've been following me around for three weeks,” she said.</p><p>He made nothing of the remark. “So you haven't been in contact with these individuals?”</p><p>“No, I hadn't,” she said, careful to emphasise every word. Which, again, was true. She'd given the boys clear instructions: stay in the country; lay low; do not contact one another for a given period of time before and after the job.</p><p>“You sure of that, Ms Miller?” As he asked his question, his look drifted over to Atticus perched on her shoulder. It was known that the dæmons were often easier to read than their people; such was their nature. But that's the thing. She was good at what she did because the only creature lying with more ease than herself, was the scrawny jay-bird.</p><p>“Yes, <em>Sergeant</em>,” she said.</p><p>"You're a difficult one, aren't you?"</p><p>"You have no idea."</p><p>Her feigned confidence was enough for the detective to give up. He knew he was getting nowhere with this shit-show. This was her playground and he was wrong to blow weeks of work like that. But he was so eager to finally speak with her. He cleared the file off the table, giving Kat a surprise. “Very well. Won't be bothering you, then. If you see or hear anythin'--” The detective reached out his hand, holding a card between his fingers.</p><p>Kat took it and her skin brushed lightly against his. Her body's reaction was immediate and it caught her off guard. She stared at the card like stupid, brain not making sense of a thing written on it. Atticus thought her attraction was misplaced; it angered him.</p><p>The detective took the glass she brought and he didn't touch since then, emptied it, put it back down with utmost care, and stood up, the sudden movement upsetting his dæmon. She flew to a nearby chair. Then he leaned in to reach for his briefcase and his hat. With a curated motion he placed it on his head, tipped it politely. “See you around, Ma'am,” he said.</p><p>And with that, Detective Sergeant James Horowitz left the <em>Murderess Row</em>, with a smirk on his lips, and his soul and companion back on his shoulder.</p><p>“Oh, of <em>that</em> I'm sure,” Kat muttered under her breath. Only problem was, she couldn't quite decide whether she liked the idea, or dreaded it. She watched him leave and then noticed Mallory watching her watching him. She exchanged a sly, suggestive smile with the waitress, who gave her a thumb up, blissfully oblivious to any context whatsoever.</p><p>"You're such a damn floozy," Atticus quirked in her ear. "This is not the time for man-hunting. We need to call the Office at once, we're in so much trouble!"</p><p>"Okay, okay! Authority, you're such a bore, you anxious bird," she mumbled as she got up, trying to remember the fastest and most direct way to get in touch with their Oakley Street contact.</p><p>He was right, after all. They were in so <em>much</em> trouble.</p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Night for Adventures</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Okay, first things first.</p><p>The beginning of the story is set in the middle of The Secet Commonwealth, which, if my calculations are right, is set in January of 2006 (the beginning of the book takes place in December 2005, what with the mentions of the end of the Michaelmas Term and Christmas Holidays, and Lyra's travel to Smyrna shouldn't really take more than a month. The year is calculated accordingly: HDM wiki says the events of La Belle Sauvage are set in summer (?) 1986 where Lyra is some 6 months old, so she had to be born maybe by the end of 1985. During the original trilogy she is 11-12 old, so it should be taking place in 1996-1997. She is 20 years old at the beginning of TSC, so the year should be 2005, slipping into 2006 a couple chapters in). If anybody has a different perspective on the time frame of the book, I am more than eager to dicuss it. I find the first chapter a little fast-paced, my beta thinks otherwise, but the next chapter should be a little more relaxed anyway.</p><p>Also, I swear this will be the only chapter with such an obnoxious use of eye dialect. The title is a poem by Victor Starbuck. Enjoy!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
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  <em>Freedom will not come </em><br/>
<em>Today, this year</em><br/>
<em>Nor ever </em><br/>
<em>Through compromise and fear.</em>
</p><p><em> -- </em> Freedom<em>, by Langston Hughes </em></p><p> </p><p>
  <em>London, January 2006 </em>
</p><p>It was a Friday night sometime in January and Kat Miller lurked in a back alley just outside her place of work, casually puffing on a hand-rolled cigarillo. Her dæmon, Atticus, in the form of an Eurasian Jay, balanced at the edge of a nearby windowsill. The weather was cold, and it was damp from yesterday's rain, and the fragrant clouds of cigarillo smoke blended with her condensed breath. She looked up as she exhaled. The burning red tip of the fag complemented the lights of the city, of the scattered Zeppelins above, which obscured the stars. A charming night, by all means. </p><p>The woman and her dæmon were people-watching, so to speak. Observing the passers-by before Kat was ought to start her shift. There was plenty to see in this part of London, at this hour: a pair of young ladies in cashmere coats; a party of four, well dressed, and already giddy lads stumbling on the curb; an older couple with extravagant jewellery and exotic monkey-shaped dæmons, unlike any Kat had ever seen. And was that the Chairman of the Society for the Promotion of Celibate Virtue? <em> My, my</em>, she thought and smirked. All silver-tail fish, all heading for the same place. Tonight will be busy.</p><p>While the night's crowd was ostentatious, the woman assessing it was anything but.</p><p>On the outside, Katalin Miller was the common type. Hair and eyes of the uninspiring shade of mud-brown, a flat nose and typical features, as she would put it, although many considered her face charming. Plainly dressed, working class, and hardly worth a second glance. There was more to her under the surface, naturally, but she would never give up more about herself than what she deemed necessary.</p><p>It was general knowledge, for instance, that she had been born in the hungarian part of Austro-Hungary and was of Slavic descent. For one reason or another she was well travelled; spoke four languages. (Well, seven, if one also counts the fair amount of foreign swear words she used frequently.) She owned a narrowboat moored at Limehouse Marina, and was seldom short of cash to generously spend on her friend's booze--the word had it she was reasonably well-off, coming from a wealthy family of horse breeders and received a tidy pension. This last part, of course, was mere gossip, but Kat liked to keep people on their toes. In the streets of London--from Westminster, through Covent Garden, and all the way to the Isle of Dogs--her name was a staple, because she liked to meddle in things unfit for a young lass, as some would say.</p><p>Other than that, she was either a mystery, or invisible by design.</p><p>Kat placed the half-smoked fag between her lips and nodded to Atticus, who flew to her outstreched arm, then threaded way through the crowd, heading in the direction of a renown jazz club, ominously called <em> Murderess Row</em>, where she worked as a barmaid. The woman and her bird disappeared behind a door marked STAFF ONLY, while the guests continued for the main entrance, which stood against the night, illuminated by the red flare of the club's neon logo.</p><p>***</p><p>That night was as hectic as she had predicted, but that wasn't unusual. The week-end shows were popular, if not legendary, just like the club itself.</p><p>The<em> Murderess Row </em>embodied a bright spot of freedom and dissent right in the middle of London's clerical district where it occupied the ground floor of a Magisterial office building. Much like the club's residence, its clientele was controversial and ironic. Both the Devout and the Wild frequented the bar: from white-collar workers in the service of the Holy Church and clerics, to Academia. The club would seem the perfect neutral ground, a place of understanding; but it was a battlefield in a cold, unforgiving war where both sides respected each other as long as it suited their agendas. Patrons who would visit <em> Murderess Row </em> exclusively for entertainment could be counted on the fingers of one hand.</p><p>By ten-o-clock, that entertainment was in the hands of a jazz orchestra, which filled the club with a gaudy tune. The cosy interior of the establishment, ready to accommodate some hundred and fifty guests, was taken up by a spacious dance floor propped by decorative cast iron pillars, a stage at one end and a bar at the other. The sides were furnished with small round tables and snugs, now all occupied. Only a few people were scattered about the hall; chatting with their drinks in their hands, or dancing. Friendly conversations fused with drunken slurs, stifling the sound of an argument at the bar.</p><p>“Mike, you've already spent a third of your week's pay on booze and can hardly sit straight, I ain't pouring you another drop,” Kat moralised while mopping up spilled whisky from the bar counter in front of a roaring drunk, red-faced Scotsman.</p><p>“Come on noo, be a good lassie, a dram!”</p><p>“No!” Annoyed, she dumped the soaked rag into a basin, drowning it in a pool of murky dishwater, and leaned closer to him. “Go home, you idiot, and take the rest of the money to your old lady. If I find out you hadn't--and I will, Mike--” she snatched his collar to keep his attention and thrust her finger into his face. “If I find you hadn't, I'ma whip your arse.”</p><p>To underline her point, she took the man's glass and added it to the rising pile of others that needed washing. Other guests standing at the bar froze, anxiously waiting for the scene to play out further. 'Mike' stared at her with his glassy eyes, maintaining a drunken wobble; a low growl rose from the ground where his buldog-dæmon was lying.</p><p>“Off you go!” squawked the girl's bird, perched on a stock rack above the bar.</p><p>This made the patron burst with laughter. “Ye know, fer such a wee un, yer a real besom!” the man bellowed and tipping his hat he stumbled out of the locale.</p><p>Kat sighed. Wearily she moved to the basin, fishing out the rag with a soft grunt of disgust.</p><p>“You have my absolute respect, I wouldn't make out a word he said,” declared an unknown voice. Wringing the piece of cloth absentmindedly, she looked to the side, not realizing right away she was being addressed. It was one of the four giggling lads she noticed at the entrance, inspecting her.</p><p>“'Beg your pardon?” She blinked.</p><p>“I mean, I could never quite get a grip on the slang. Whatever is <em> a besom</em>, if you don't mind me asking?” he continued, finishing his drink with one large gulp. He was clean-cut, speaking properly and was a bit overdressed for the occasion, she noticed. A small black lizard lingered on his shoulder.</p><p>“It means a…uh, difficult woman. Or a broom, depending on one's degree of drunkenness,” she said snickering and approached him. Atticus landed on the counter, ruffling his feathers. The reptile acknowledged him, but both dæmons remained silent. </p><p>“Charming. And you, where you're from? I find your accent also rather intriguing.”</p><p>Kat frowned. “Continental,” she replied cautiously, knowing just how much trouble could one get himself into by sharing personal information with the wrong people.</p><p>“Continental where? I mean, I travel a lot, but it would be nice to broaden my horizons,” he chatted on.</p><p>Kat kept glaring. Noticing her tension, the man's bold persona dissipated. “I--I am very sorry, I didn't mean to get too personal. I just thought--my mates left me here, chasing skirts, and I hate to drink alone, so I--,” he rambled, now embarrassed.</p><p>She relaxed her body a little. He was harmless. Probably just a revolting rich boy on his wild night out. Usually she would disregard the attention of men like him altogether--the audacious and vain. But once in a while it was nice to be noticed by someone sober enough to manage a sensible conversation.</p><p>“Make nothing of it, really,” she reassured him with a warm, apologetic smile. “Let me fix you a drink and you can ask whatever you like.”</p><p>The lad laughed and nodded. Kat reached for a bottle of an expensive cognac with the intention of refilling his glass but he covered it with his hand.</p><p>“I would rather try whatever you are having,” he gestured at the empty shot glass which she used once that night--the staff weren't permitted to drink too much on duty. Harmless he was, she thought. And obviously easy to swindle too. Her smile shifted into an unpleasant smirk. Turning around, she put the first bottle in its place on the shelf and chose another, full of clear liquid and with a hand-made label reading <em> barackpálinka</em>.</p><p>Apricot brandy, the strongest in South-East Anglia.</p><p>***</p><p>The young Englishman managed to down two rounds before the liquor started to kick hard. He did have a head start, after all. Two shots and he was beginning to be lazy with his words and his eyes wandered, trying hard to focus on the features of her face. His lizard-dæmon lost his grip and sprawled on the bar counter, Atticus towering over him. Kat listened with feigned interest to the man's boasting, about how he traveled Europe during his gap year with nothing but one backpack. He had her attention for a moment there, weren't it clear from the rest of the story that it wasn't much of a backpacking trip, more than a Zeppelin cruise, and one paid for by his parents at that.</p><p>She leaned in over the counter, face inches from his. If birds could scoff, Atticus would, but because that was way out of his abilities, he just shrieked in contempt, startling the little reptile out of his wits. Kat side-looked him and continued the conversation. While the man talked about his trip to Paris, she reached for the flap of his jacket and brushed her fingers against the fabric. The gesture made him stutter. He forgot what he wanted to say and instead he just stared at her, lips apart.</p><p>“I've been to many places, but never Paris. Is it as beautiful as they say?” she asked, controlling the eye-contact. She could see his tongue slowly scrape against his teeth and couldn't help it but shudder with disgust. While he tried to compose some kind of cliche answer about how romantic the city was, and while Atticus distracted the man's dæmon with nothing but his looming presence, Kat's hand kept caressing the jacket. Only the most attentive eye would see two of her fingers reaching inside his inner pocket with the perfect speed and precision. Her hand, then, stayed on his chest.</p><p>“How wonderful that sounds,” she sighed. He started to lean in for a kiss, but they were torn from the momentum by a horrified voice from behind Kat's back.</p><p>"Miller!"</p><p>The barmaid jumped in shock from the bar and her bird flew to a lampshade above their heads, wings thrashing. Her hands shot to the back-pockets of her trousers. Something rustled in her palm.</p><p>In the doorway of the storeroom stood Olivia Faust, the owner of the <em> Murderess Row </em> club in all her silk-clad glory, together with her borzoi, Savva. “What on Earth do you think you're doing?” she asked. Her face was stern, but amused as she watched the lad still hovering over the bar, swaying, ready for that little something that would turn his night around.</p><p>“I--” Kat started, but a raised hand interrupted her. </p><p>“My office, now,” Faust ordered.</p><p>Kat rubbed her eyes with a groan and gestured towards Atticus, who landed on her wrist. Walking meekly past Faust, she navigated through the storeroom, down a corridor, and into her employer's office.</p><p>She entered and stood in front of the desk that dominated the space. The room was furnished with only the highest-quality pieces of furniture, antique and modern, and filled with works of art, which represented the sophisticated taste of their owner. She'd seen the pieces countless times before and they never failed to impress.</p><p>Atticus pecked at her forearm. It made her flinch. "I say, focus, woman. Now you've really done it. She's sacking us. Drinking and feeling up a customer."</p><p>Kat couldn't help it, but to laugh. "Feeling up a customer. Brilliant."</p><p>"I mean it! You're unhinged! And Olive can see it," he chastised.</p><p>Her laugh faded into a sigh. “Let's not go down that road now,” she whispered as Faust flowed into the room, giving her a curious look.</p><p>She didn't take the chair behind her desk as she would when in the mood for scolding her staff, but rather propped herself against the table casually to face Kat. The golden wolfhound lay under her feet, his relaxed demeanor also suggesting this wasn't a work related matter. Atticus drifted to the ground and hopped closer to greet him.</p><p>Before she said anything, Faust reached out a hand and jerked her fingers, provoking a scoff from the other woman.</p><p>“Come on,” Kat begged.</p><p>“We have a deal, Badger, darling,” Faust said, using her nickname, and repeated the gesture.</p><p>From her back pocket, Kat pulled out a money clip thick with banknotes, which she had pinched moments earlier from her unsuspecting victim. She counted the money, reluctantly placed half of the sum into her boss's palm, and tucked the rest away under her shirt.</p><p>Faust chuckled, tossing the bundle on her desk. “You're the worst.”</p><p>“Yeah, yeah, we'll talk about that the next time you gonna ask me to do that on purpose. What's up?” Kat asked, hoping to get to the bottom of things quick. She was curious. Faust looked tired: black circles under her green eyes and lines of worry marking her face. The usually flawless ash-brown hair stuck out of her hairdo as if she ran her hand through it too many times, a gesture Kat recognized as her telltale sign for when she was anxious or angry. She admired Olivia since the day she met her, was drawn to her by her beauty and her character, and knew there weren't many things in the world that would upset her to this extent.</p><p>“How have you been, good? I haven't bumped into you in a few days,” Faust started instead and smiled, still her eyes remained inanimate. Savva also engaged Atticus in an unrelated, strange conversation and Kat could sense his unease. Something felt not right.</p><p>“Olive, what's going on?” she asked again, the joviality disappearing from her voice. A moment ago she was tipsy from the drinks, but that was all gone now, her wits sharp.</p><p>The woman stared at her for a beat, then looked away, then closed her eyes shut tight, as if contemplating all the available choices.</p><p>“Right. I know. Fuck it,” Faust cursed, rubbing her face. Her body slumped and she didn't try to hide her exhaustion anymore. “I need you to get something done for me--for our mutual friend. They need something to be delivered to Mr Molton's, the jeweler's in Hatton Garden.” With a nod she pointed to a briefcase arranged in a chair by the door.</p><p><em> So this was Oakley Street business, then</em>, Kat thought. The electrifying sensation of excitement tickled her spine. She glanced at her wristwatch: it was half past ten. “But, now?” she enquired. </p><p>“Yes, now. The documents should have been here by seven and I ought to be delivering them myself, but there was a hold up and I have an important meeting planned. It would be highly suspicious if I called it off, given the circumstances. You're the only one I trust. And they do, too.”</p><p>Kat frowned and exchanged a look with Atticus. “Given what circumstances?”</p><p>Faust pinched the bridge of her nose. Shuffled in place, took a few deep breaths. “The Office is being closed down. The Chancellor had Glenys called in this morning--Christabel is in operation.”</p><p>Silence fell over the room so deep, Kat thought the rush of blood in her ears and her rapid breath deafening. Even Savva didn't try to steer the other dæmon's attention away any longer. All four of them paused, as if they'd been torn from the joyous world behind the walls of that office, into a much darker, unknown reality. </p><p>Kat was baffled by the news. They anticipated complications ever since the congress in Geneva and the assassination of the Patriarch, but this was different kind of a problem altogether. All of the sudden, she felt helpless and furious. “Would I be wrong to presume the High Council has something to do with this?”</p><p>Faust smiled, sincerely this time. “Newman presented it as the Government's decision, but, of course, we can't be sure about anything these days.”</p><p>“But… What do we do now? I mean, does anything change? For us?”</p><p>“No, not really. I will continue my funding, which Godwin was very happy to hear; some officials will join our little underground movement. Except without the backing of the Office we will have to be much more careful. Much more, <em> subtle</em>, if you know what I mean.”</p><p>Atticus grew bigger as he puffed his chest, giving Kat the <em> I told you so! </em> look. She rolled her eyes, but more than annoyed, it embarrassed her.</p><p>Faust noticed the unease and cut in with a question, “Can I count on you, then?”</p><p>Without hesitation, Kat said, “Anything you--they--need. But isn't it a bit, y'know, outside of the usual opening hours?”</p><p>“He'll be waiting for you.”</p><p>“I'm not concerned about Mr Molton,” Kat said, with the State Police and CCD patrols always on mind.</p><p>Faust was ahead of her, though. “If anyone questions you, just tell them you've been delivering jewelry for me to be evaluated, that I wasn't comfortable showing it off in broad daylight. In the briefcase you'll find a package containing a diamond set--which I would very much like back--and I've stitched up a written permit. If anything goes wrong, you come back to me and I will take care of it. Will this suffice?”</p><p>“I'm impressed,” Kat admitted and nodded in agreement.</p><p>“Miles is waiting outside with the car, he will take you there. Not a word to him.”</p><p>“Of course.”</p><p>Faust walked over to the chair, to hand over the briefcase. The two dæmons followed her, Atticus riding Savva's back; Kat offered her hand and the jay jumped over, his bony toes clamping around her index finger. Into her other hand she took the case from Faust. “Please, be careful. The documents are very, <em> very </em> sensitive in nature. From now on, we must only count on our people,” she said.</p><p>The urgency in her words made Kat nervous. Ever since she worked for Oakley Street, the purpose of her work had been clear to her, as was its importance in maintaining the freedom of the modern world, but things were so calm for the past year, it had become almost mundane.</p><p>“Well, you know what they say,” chirped Atticus when they were making themselves comfortable inside Faust's black limousine minutes later, “it's always calm before the storm.”</p><p>And she could do nothing, but agree. <em>Was this just a passing storm, though, or were they trapped in the eye of a hurricane?</em></p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Flowers and Birds</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This chapter was getting super long, so take this as chapter three, part one. The next part will be arriving soon.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
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  <em> London, January 2006 </em>
</p><p>The ride from Westminster to Hatton Garden wasn't a long one, but Kat asked Miles, Olivia's driver, to take it slow, so that she could have a moment to ponder over everything that had been said. Atticus sat on her knee, eyes wide, head full of unanswered questions.</p><p>She watched the anbaric lights glimmer on the Thames as the car emerged from behind the Palace and made a turn, then accelerated down the embankment. The roads were empty. All was dead and silent outside, the weekend celebrations hidden behind closed doors in respect of the curfew. Fingers of her left hand drummed on the briefcase; the ripples of the light and the dark dancing on its surface as they traveled through the city.</p><p>
  <em> The Office for Special Enquiry is being closed down. </em>
</p><p>It was true, what Faust said, that it won't make much difference to how the underground associates of Oakley Street operate, but it was a profound piece of information nevertheless. It meant that in case of trouble, they would have no legal force to stand behind them. What it principally meant, though, was that the influence of the Church in Brytain grew still and that it started to expand far beyond the walls of the Ministry of Theology.</p><p>The thread of her thought was broken by Miles calling out to her.</p><p>“Sorry, I've completely zoned out. You were saying?” Kat said.</p><p>“I was asking if you know what this is about? I've been to places with Olivia, but Hatton Garden at ten in the night is a little over the top.”</p><p>With Atticus still speechless in her lap, Kat moved a little in the back of the car and leaned in against the passenger seat to have a better sight of Miles. He was new to the club's ensemble--a young man, lean and charming, just like his cat-dæmon, presently spread across the dashboard. While Kat watched the black-and-white creature stretch her paws, Waterloo Bridge slipped into view of the windscreen. They would be arriving at Mr Molton's within minutes.</p><p>“She wants some diamonds evaluated, or something. Said she doesn't want people knowing she went there, is why we're driving there in the middle of the fucking night.” In the rear-view mirror she catched a glimpse of a confused grimace. “Appears, you go to the diamond merchant with your own diamonds, the first thought is that you're broke, and are immediately a subject of gossip. Which, as y'know, is <em> awful</em>. These rich people, mate,” she joked.</p><p>“What do we know, right?” he snickered. “But I wouldn't be surprised if she <em> did </em>want to sell 'em, what with all the hubbub in Geneva.”</p><p>This startled Kat a little. He didn't look like the kind of guy to show interest in politics. “What d'you mean?”</p><p>“Was out with the boys, right, and one of my mates said Olivia should start to watch her back, because the Church is starting to be very sensitive about everything heresy related, and that the blokes who look after our interests could get sacked or ordered to close us down soon. So I figured Olive will be all about money now. You think whatever's in that fancy case will get us going?”</p><p>Kat knew what Miles meant, and the answer to his question was a hard no, even though not for the reasons he had in mind.</p><p>It wasn't a secret that the club's existence in Westminster was undesirable. Olivia's indecent enterprise cast a bad light on the Magisterium, which looked incompetent to manage heretical behaviour at its very core. Geneva lobbied at the London Chapter for years to get rid of Faust. Problem was, despite being as pious as the Devil himself, the socialite was crucial to some of the Church's bodies, because of her wealthy financial donations.</p><p>But unlike Miles, Kat knew it wasn't money that kept the club at the bottom of every court, college and council's list of interests. It was information. Faust was a woman of experience, who lived through enough to know that come shift in the balance of power, the only true leverage was extortion, not bribery. And at this point, with everything Olivia had in store, she posed a threat and it was a matter of time somebody would try to make it go away. (The idea sent shivers down Kat's neck. She dreaded the possibility: would Olivia go down, she would go with her. She had been the one to collect the dirt, after all.)</p><p>So, no. Nothing that was in that briefcase won't eventually be enough to keep the club going, should anybody set their mind on shutting it down, and should they do so with the new High Council's blessing. But that wasn't the answer Miles wanted or needed. For him it wasn't about politics, or heresy, or about who did what. For him it was a steady job keeping him off the street.</p><p>“If not this, I'm sure Olivia will think of something. Worst-case scenario, we'll reopen somewhere else,” she lied.</p><p>“I guess you're right,” Miles said, pulling the car over in a tidy-looking courtyard off the main street, where some of the back entrances of the jewelry stores and workshops were. It was badly lit by the old naphtha lamps. Lights were on in several windows despite the late hour, including the destination to which they were headed. “Rightio, we're here--mind your head getting out. You'll be long, you reckon?”</p><p>“I'm no expert on gem grading, but I guess it'll take a while.”</p><p>“Dang, I knew I should've taken my book.”</p><p>Kat giggled nervously and slammed the car door shut. She clutched the leather handle of the briefcase, palm sweating, and with two long steps she closed the distance between the automobile and Mr Molton's shop. Atticus was clawing at her shoulder.</p><p>She tried not to look obvious as she checked all the corners of the area, all hopelessly lost in the dark of night, the light from the lamps too faint to reach them. They seemed to be alone.</p><p>Holding in a large breath, she knocked.</p><p>***</p><p>Kat was delighted when Miles announced he had orders to drop her off at home after their mission. When she exited the diamond merchant's, she felt exhausted, even though all she had done was sit around and wait.</p><p>Mr Molton was an old and sickly gentleman, whose family had been friends of Oakley Street since the Swiss War, in which his late father had fought. He was very talkative, maybe far too much to Kat's liking, and after putting away the documents into a secret safe, he tried to entertain her with his old spy stories while he graded Olivia's diamonds--no cover is bulletproof unless there's a grain of truth to it, he said. Not that she didn't appreciate the gesture, and was also the last person to decline an exciting tale of adventure, but the entire night had been a one constant reminder of the selfish, power-hungry, authoritarian world they lived in and it had sent her spiralling down into anxiety. So when Mr Molton finally let her go, all she could think of was a drink and a bed.</p><p>Despite the weariness, she had trouble sleeping. Atticus had been near comatose until late morning, but Kat couldn't shake the rush of adrenaline that made her muscles tremble and hurt. She stared at the shiplap ceiling of the narrowboat painted with a composition of various flowers and birds, listening to a muffled singing of Gert Vries coming home from his shift at the docks. She was certain she's been missing something important going on in the world. Something eluded her, and she hated it. To be uninformed and ignorant Kat thought to be the worst faith of an individual, and all her life she despised those who would choose oblivion and happiness over truth.</p><p>For Atticus, the antique motifs of the painting soon transformed into delirious dreams. The deeper he fell into his sleep, and the longer his human studied the delicate brush strokes, the more terrifying the images were; propelled further by the sound of water splashing against the boat's hull, familiar and alien at the same time. Kat could see him out of the corner of her eye in his accustomed spot on the headboard of the bed, shivering and breathing hard.</p><p>He dreamed about the birds becoming shadows, and then about the shadows moving along the walls, and growing until there was nothing but darkness; and about Fairies draping his body with fragrant blooming garlands while the darkness suffocated him, filling his insides like water from the river. The horrors then stopped abruptly, and he was flying with the birds, soaring high above London, only to fall again into the shadows beneath. His mind finally settled when Kat turned away from the painting and closed her eyes shut. Her heart was beating fast alongside his.</p><p>The dæmon would be sleeping till noon if it weren't for her restlessness that woke him. Instead of enjoying a slow morning on their day off, Kat paced their home already dressed and insisting on hitting the city right away due to motivations he suspected but couldn't quite grasp. He protested. She wouldn't listen, knowing his attitude would improve with time and a hot meal. And even if Atticus wouldn't say it out loud, he wanted some context and answers, too.</p><p>First, they took a bus to the wash house on Marshall Street. After a piping hot shower and a little feather grooming, they headed to the market, where at one of the stalls Kat got them a large cup of coffee and freshly baked beans on toast.</p><p>The day was cold, cloudy, and grey; one of the many this month. Their limbs were warm and relaxed so the chill air was refreshing, and they could already feel the fog on their minds lifting. Kat ate the steaming beans squatting against the back of the stall, the beverage carefully positioned within reach on the ground.</p><p>“May I know what we're up to?” Atticus asked while she swallowed a mouthful of the messy meal. He walked around, still in a mood, scanning the pavement for any bits she dropped. He wouldn't do this often, but the beans he was especially fond of.</p><p>“I'm thinking about going to <em> Florence </em> in the afternoon. If there's something fishy happening in the Parliament or the Cabinet, or anywhere in the country for that matter, there will be talk,” she mumbled. <em> The Florence and Trinity </em> was a pub in Whitehall, popular with public workers and King's College Academia. It was a place where, if listening carefully, one could learn all sorts of interesting things.</p><p>Atticus whistled, a sigh of sorts. “I was hoping to avoid socializing tonight.”</p><p>Kat chuckled, wiping sauce from her chin into her sleeve. <em> The Florence and Trinity </em> was also popular with a company of certain people she was acquainted with. A group of friends, one could say. Because as secretive as she was, she did enjoy a pint outside her place of work from time to time.</p><p>“Allright, allright,” he clicked his beak. “And till then? Florence doesn't open until four.”</p><p>“A walk in the park?” she suggested.</p><p>“Sounds like a compromise,” he complied.</p><p>Kat crumpled the grubby paper napkin, which came with the toast, and buried it in the mess that were the pockets of her suede winter jacket. She collected the cup of coffee off the ground, stood up. With a heavy heart she stepped in the direction of St James's.</p><p>Atticus took to the sky, flying as high as he could, in hope that the gust of wind will drive the last of the night's visions away. Then he went higher still, circling above the woman's head, pulling at the thread of their bond. Not to hurt her, but certainly to annoy.</p><p>He looked down.</p><p>The world below was grey and cold, and it was yet at peace.</p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0004"><h2>4. The Florence and Trinity</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
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  <em> London, January 2006 </em>
</p><p>By noon, rain replaced the dry coolness of the day--the air wasn't cold enough for it to snow, so the water gushed and lashed in freezing strands at everything alive, and their stroll in the park had been cut short. For the rest of the day Kat and Atticus were forced to dawdle about under the Swiss War Guard Memorial until the rain had become drizzle and it was safe to walk without getting soaked.</p><p>The atmosphere at <em> The Florence and Trinity </em> was in perfect contrast with the hostility of the outside world. It was warm and cosy, bearing the characteristic charm of an English pub with its weathered furnishing, sour smell of beer, and off tune radio music. The owners were welcoming, their food and liquor tasty and affordable. Which is exactly why the place was packed with guests by the time they arrived.</p><p>Kat pushed the revolving wooden door and the splashing sound of her steps got replaced by the familiar hum of a lively establishment. She let out a sigh of relief once the warmth coated her face and she shook the droplets of water out of her hair.</p><p>Atticus gurgled anxiously at the sight of the crowd. He turned on her shoulder so that he could hide his head in the nook of her neck. The dæmon really wasn't in a mood to mingle and the unease started to spill over to Kat as well. Hours earlier she was willing to give up another night of sleep for any word of interest. Now, after a day out in the cold and damp, she wasn't so positive about it.</p><p>“Give me two hours, or three, we'll be home by eight, slubujem.” <em> I promise</em>. She nudged the feathers of his opened wings with her nose.</p><p>The jay whistled in discontent.</p><p>It was one way or the other with them, nothing in between--where she was confident, he would overthink every action; where he was courageous, she would panic. Their emotions were almost always the other way around. Sometimes, it would help them to pull each other forward and get things done; sometimes they ended a mess. Tonight, Kat wasn't sure about which it would be. Before she could find another word of comfort to the dæmon, a loud call caught her attention:</p><p>“Miller!”</p><p>The shout came from the landlord, Richard Trivitt, a small but stocky, good-natured man. He stood behind the bar, pulling a pint.</p><p>Kat waved to him, then walked up to one of the few untaken spots not far from the tap. Atticus kept huddling against her. “Hey, Rick,” she greeted.</p><p>“I'll be damned. Haven't seen <em> you </em>in a while,” said the man.</p><p>“Been working, same as you. Times are hard, people drink, don't they,” she said, giving him a crooked smile, and folded her arms on the bartop.</p><p>“You guys busy at the <em> Row </em>?” He finished pulling one glass, reached for another.</p><p>“Always.”</p><p>“Guess the Magisterium lot are always thirsty and never short of cash, eh?”</p><p>“Like here it's any different!” Kat giggled, pointing her head over the shoulder. She then bounced forward, standing on her toes--a movement so sudden, it almost sent Atticus flying to the ground. He landed on the bar, claws clicking on the laquered wood, and let out a shrill cry, giving few people around a scare.</p><p>Kat leaned a little more over the counter still. With a lowered voice she asked Richard, “Listen, is Pol here tonight?”</p><p>The man groaned in agreement, absorbed in crafting the perfect head on the pint. Then he added, “Where else would she be at this hour? In the back, with that bloke of hers.”</p><p>“Thanks,” she said.</p><p>“Can I get you anything?”</p><p>Kat took a step back with the intention to leave, but then stopped, her hand still on the counter. She knocked on it playfully and smiled. “Actually, a jar of the pale lager I see on tap would be wonderful.” Her belly called for a bowl of stew from the evening menu, but it would have to do with a liquid dinner.</p><p>Richard grimaced. “Since you didn't show for weeks, may I also suggest a shout of something stronger with that Bohemian <em> pilsner </em>shite, as retaliation for your mates?”</p><p>She laughed. He was one of those landlords you do not argue with when it comes to advice. “Gin, make it double.”</p><p>With Atticus perched atop her head, serving as an extra pair of eyes, Kat maneuvered through the front of the pub and into the back room, which was reserved for smokers. A pint and four shots of gin full to the brim swayed along with her movements on a tray that she balanced in one hand. She hardly paid it any attention, it was second nature. She had the sure foot of a salt-water sailor, the late John Faa had said once, could hold an egg on a spoon among storm waves.</p><p>“Down left,” Atticus said, spotting the right table--a shabby thing all the way in the far corner, with three matching chairs and a bench propped against the wall. She could see it, too, and the person sitting behind it, the one she was looking for: Pauline Gallagher.</p><p>One could call Pol a best friend; hardly in terms of affection, but certainly by knowing Kat the longest. They made an acquaintance in Oxford, where they both lived for a part of their lives: Kat was drawn to Pol, because she stood out in the crowd of the local gilded youth. She was the proper daughter of a good family, pretty as a picture, true, but also brilliant, and the most riotous person under the sun. Kat had witnessed the woman outdrink a gyptian man twice her size on a whim and win a racing horse off him one day; the next she would ace her term final with the ease and grace of a true lady.</p><p>Fate brought the two women together again in London, where Pol presently worked at the Westminster Reference Library, which is why their friendship also continued as one of convenience: free admissions to a posh club for one; access to near unlimited information for the other. Pol's dæmon, Drem, befit her personality perfectly--he was a Barn owl, now seated on the backrest of the bench.</p><p>Two men accompanied Pol: her boyfriend Lawrence Chapman, called Laurie, a somewhat self-conscious anthropology doctoral student at King's College; and Santiago Flores, his childhood mate. Tiago was a temperamental child of a southern gyptian mother and a landloper father, an aspiring painter, and a red ragger. His Alma, a beautiful Hawkmoth, rested on the rim of an empty glass, her satin wings opening and closing. The only creature Kat couldn't see anywhere was Laurie's hedgehog-dæmon, likely hiding somewhere under his jacket.</p><p>The three of them were engrossed in a heated argument, but as soon as Kat arrived at the table, there was silence.</p><p>Without a word, she set the drinks down on the tabletop crammed with empty glasses and full ashtrays, took her jacket off, and sat on the bench beside Pauline. Atticus stirred the rancid air with a beat of his wings and landed on the table. Alma immediately hurried to greet him--the jay was a favourite of hers. The attraction was mutual, which is why the moth's excited fluttering around wasn't met with hostility despite the bird's bad mood.</p><p>“Just like that, really?” Pol said.</p><p>“What, now we have to be invited or something?” Kat smiled a wicked smile and hugged her around the shoulders.</p><p>“God, you smell like a wet dog.” Pol shook her head and rolled her eyes, and that was the end of any questioning.</p><p>These young people were all independent, self-absorbed, and busy building their careers, relationships, and characters, and it wasn't uncommon for them to disappear for short periods of time, only to return one day, often with newfound wisdom and experience to share with their friends. Their worldview would not let them question the decisions of another. What was it to them, who's been where, with whom, doing whatever?</p><p>“I don't mind her as long as the next round is vodka,” said Tiago, a double shot of gin already down his throat.</p><p>“Whatever the next round is, <em> you're </em> paying for it, <em> pendejo</em>,” Kat snapped back at him. She also took the small glass and raised it in a toast.</p><p>The rest followed suit.</p><p>***</p><p>After an hour or so and two more rounds of lager it seemed to Kat that the evening wasn't going anywhere. She had whispered shortly with Pol, though she didn't know much more about current affairs than what Kat had already read in the newspaper. Atticus had mustered strength to chat with Alma, but also learned nothing. He now silently sat at the edge of the table, near his person, same as the others--with such big a company it was natural the dæmons would listen and only let themselves be heard when necessary. Otherwise it would be almost impossible to pay attention to what anybody said.</p><p>The main problem Kat has encountered was that the favourite topic of smalltalk, politics, had recently gotten replaced by another: Psychologic Dæmonology. As the number one theme since <em> The Hyperchorasmians </em> and <em> The Constant Deceiver </em> had become bestsellers, it was being discussed everywhere and anywhere, there wasn't a member of Academia who wasn't obsessed with the subject, including Laurie, who now bothered everyone about it and wouldn't change the tune all evening.</p><p>“Anybody read Woodcott's new study?” asked Laurie and Pol rolled her eyes. The poor girl always had to partake of his academic monologues twice, or more, given she had made the grave mistake of moving in with him.</p><p>“The one about the corvids?” Tiago said.</p><p>“<em>The Specific Mechanisms of Face Recognition Memory in Those with Corvidae Dæmons</em>,” Kat specified and laughed softly. It was bold to call the piece a study, provided it was published as a featurette in the London Gazette. “Yes, we'd all read it, go on.”</p><p>“Well, captivating as it was, the preposterous hypothesis that anybody with a corvid dæmon has superior facial processing capabilities bothers me. I would find it hilarious to introduce the poor fellow to our Kat here. Years of research and surveying refuted in the blink of an eye!” Laurie roared and everybody laughed, even Kat.</p><p>“Amusing, well done. Y'know, I'm actually brilliant with faces,” she contradicted.</p><p>“Indeed, as long as they're not attached to the part-time workers at the club, who you constantly confuse with customers trying to sneak backstage. Unless they're a thirty-something with either cute tits or a large cock, that is,” Laurie argued, an impudent spark in his eye.</p><p>“Alas, the rest is deemed unimportant! That's what I have my brilliant corvid dæmon for, to remember everybody else!” Kat raised her voice to speak over the guffaw. Atticus leaped to her shoulder and snug under her chin.</p><p>“I agree the piece had its flaws, not taking into consideration specific impairments caused by brain damage, for instance, but it still had more consistency to it than some recent columns in that Talbot's piece of trash of a pamphlet. <em> Journal of Moral Philosophy</em>, my arse--” Laurie continued.</p><p>She didn't catch the rest of his bitter rant, for Pol leaned in, her beer-infused breath warm against Kat's ear, “Speaking of recognizable faces.”</p><p>Kat followed her amused gaze over to a table at the other end of the room. “You gotta be shitting me,” she cussed.</p><p>Pol waved her fingers at D. S. Horowitz, who raised his drink in a greeting, a smirk creeping across his face.</p><p>“Go talk to him,” Pol said.</p><p>“Not in the mood,” Kat spat back.</p><p>“Come on.”</p><p>When Kat realized that Pol was gesturing to him to come over, it was too late. She slapped her hand and gave her a berating look, regretting ever confiding anything in the woman. (In a moment of drunken carelessness, she might've mentioned to Pol that she liked Horowitz--liked the way he looked at her, was the exact phrase she used--and her friend immediately found it fascinating and hilarious. Ever since she wouldn't let a chance slip to annoy her about the matter.)</p><p>From the corner of her eye Kat could see Horowitz knock his drink back, then argue with his Little owl dæmon before she hopped from the back of a chair to his raised forearm. Moments later the detective was standing over them.</p><p>“Miller,” he greeted, with what Kat thought was a lot more sarcasm than he anticipated, and for the second time that evening talk stopped at the table. She gave him an acknowledging nod.</p><p>Horowitz looked different from the first time they met, two months ago. He was shaved clean, which suited him more, and wore the uniform white collar under a black sweater and heavy coat, instead of his civilian clothes, clearly coming straight from work. His cowboy hat had gone without a trace, and Kat wondered whether they weren't allowed to wear personalized items of clothing on duty, or whether he ditched it after she made fun of him for being the most conspicuous detective in the whole of England.</p><p>Because the awkward silence dragged out, Kat spoke, "Gang, this is D. S. Horowitz--yes, the <em> one</em>--Sergeant, may I present Lawrence Chapman--"</p><p>“Laurie, please.”</p><p>“Laurie? As in--” Horowitz enquired.</p><p>“<em>Little Women</em>, yes. Mother is a great Alcott enthusiast,” Laurie said.</p><p>“Santiago Flores; and you've already had the honour of meeting Ms Pauline Gallagher at the club,” Kat wrapped up the introduction. Horowitz gave them all a polite bow of the head.</p><p>“Please do join us, Sergeant, the evening is too fine for a chap like yourself to be drinking alone!” Pol chimed and pulled Kat closer so that she would clear a spot on the bench.</p><p>“No, come on. I bet the Sergeant has better things planned than to drink with a bunch of strangers,” Kat scoffed.</p><p>“Like what?” Horowitz wondered.</p><p>“Brooding?” Kat said in all seriousness. She glared intensely, meaning to intimidate, but provoking a slight smile from the man instead.</p><p>“She's joking, Sergeant. Move aside Badge--please, sit,” Pol cut in and twisted her friend's elbow until Kat hissed in pain and gave in.</p><p>Horowitz squeezed next to her. Atticus on her shoulder was having none of the tight closeness of another human and crawled down Kat's shirt until he felt confident, hanging from the collar. She propped him with her hand, stroking him lightly. The man's owl-dæmon remained clutching at his sleeve, eyes half shut in contemplation.</p><p>Corners of her mouth dropped as she gave Horowitz a look of disdain, but inwardly she was thrilled. His presence sure wasn't anticipated, but if she approached him carefully, she might discover a fair share of interesting things and tonight might be worth all the discomfort after all.</p><p>Horowitz was a blabbermouth, Kat knew. It had become clear during his second or third visit to the club, when he slipped a deal of sensitive information while questioning her. It was unknown to her whether he did so intentionally to impress, or to set a trap; or whether he just had a habit of thinking out loud, a somewhat counterproductive trait for a policeman. One way or the other, since then, Kat made herself appear helpful (with a dash of reluctance). She did all that she could to encourage him to come back anytime, and by now he even considered her trustworthy enough to sometimes consult thoughts on less vital cases--thefts, break ins, rally brawls--exactly what she wanted, and what Oakley Street embraced with excitement.</p><p>As for Atticus, he still had his doubts about this unlikely union. And with the news they received yesterday, he was on high alert and distrustful of everyone. Good thing that Horowitz's dæmon, Stella, wasn't much of a talker and Atticus was left alone with his worries.</p><p>“So, how do two decent gentlemen like you find themselves in the company of Westminster's most notorious ladies? You're also… civil servants, so to speak?” the detective asked the boys jokingly, earning a sincere round of laughter.</p><p>“God forbid, no!” Laurie snickered over his pint. “I'm a Scholar--”</p><p>“Aspiring,” Pol pointed out.</p><p>“A <em> Scholar </em> at King's College. Tiago here is an <em> Artiste</em>. A painter.”</p><p>“A painter? Impressive. Any good?” Horowitz asked.</p><p>“Not entirely hopeless, I dare say,” Santiago said with confidence.</p><p>Horowitz then asked Tiago about his chosen medium and style, and the following conversation flowed effortlessly.</p><p>It still confused Kat how attentive and warm-hearted the detective was, despite the aloof, even arrogant first impression.<em> It's the eyes that feel so distant</em>, she thought, <em> because of their perfect shade of the blue and green glacial ice</em>. Tonight his gaze was steady, she noticed, without the chronic tics that would often disturb it, which suggested he was in a good, relaxed mood.</p><p>After a back-and-forth of mandatory formalities, Laurie, who grew bored and nervous from the lack of attention, suddenly changed the subject and skipped back to his initial lecture. “So, anyway! Before the Sergeant had us interrupted, I spoke about Talbot. To finish my thought--”</p><p>Because Laurie was loud and didn't require much reciprocation to his monologue, Kat utilized the moment to try and engage Horowitz in an innocent chat, and maybe coax something out of him that would regard the news around the city. She leaned back against the wall and with a gesture compelled Atticus to sit on the back of her hand--because Stella still pretended to be slumbering, there was no reason to force him into an unwanted tête-à-tête. He cooed in gratitude.</p><p>"Are you following me again?" Kat said, an easy jest to begin with.</p><p>"Nah, just changed locale. Had to stop goin' to the last one, despicable staff, honestly," he replied in a similarly jovial manner.</p><p>Kat chuckled and reached for the pack of cigarillos scrunched in her back-pocket. “Take it easy, Jim,” she whispered and offered him a smoke. “I must admit I'm happy to see you. Kinda missed your grim presence.”</p><p>“Should've said so. If I had known, I would definitely stick around more often.” He took a cig and in return produced a matchbox. Kat found it impossible not to stare at the specks of colour and light in the iris of his eye while he held the flame for her. They kept looking at each other even after a cloud of spicy fog veiled their faces. She counted too many fluttering heartbeats before the detective jerked his head and continued, “Been busy. Investigations to lead, arrests to make. Y'know, the lot.”</p><p>“You make it sound so serious.”</p><p>“Yeah, London's been a serious city recently,” Horowitz grunted and fell into silence, paying far too much attention to his cig.</p><p>To steer his mind from whatever bothered it, Kat approached him about another affair. “When you stopped coming I thought you found someone new to bother. Figured you must've closed the case."</p><p>He bobbed his head to the side in confusion.</p><p>"The break in at the Office of Inquisition?" she clarified.</p><p>Horowitz scowled. “Oh, that. No. We dropped the case a week ago.”</p><p>“How so?” Now <em> that was</em> something interesting she didn't know. But-- "Why?"</p><p>“The Chief Inspector's direct order. He said we won't be wastin' forces on a furniture do-over, which I can't disagree with--we <em> do </em> have other pressing cases to attend to. The Director of the Office wasn't exactly happy with the decision, but since the damage was close to none and they kept reassuring us that nothin' was misplaced...” He shrugged, then added, “All evidence we have is circumstantial. 'Twas a matter of time, really.”</p><p>Kat frowned, letting out a long smoking exhale through her nose. “Wait, the Chief said that, Ellis Gardner? That came out of his head?”</p><p>“Yes,” Horowitz said. “Does that surprise you?”</p><p>“I guess. From what I know he always does what the Church wants. Bet he would jump into a fire if they asked and would call it God's will.”</p><p>“I thought it strange at first, too. But hey, I got a ton of other shit to deal with, so I didn't ask about it no more. There's this one thing that bugs me, though--”</p><p>“Which is?”</p><p>She realized she was too eager to ask, because his eyebrows shot up immediately, then furrowed. The look on his face half amused, half puzzled.</p><p>“What?” she said and shrugged. “I'm just being polite, carrying on with the conversation.”</p><p>All she got was another questioning glare. “Are you?”</p><p>“Wanna talk about something else, you're a free man to change the subject, anytime. But we both know you ain't gonna do that,” she said, pointing a cigarillo butt in his face before stubbing it out.</p><p>Horowitz laughed. “Godammit, Miller. Fine,” he said, to which Stella turned her head and opened her eyes, piercing his person with a criticizing look.</p><p>“I guess it can do no harm, the case is closed after all,” he added, more to reassure himself than to oppose his dæmon's silent contempt. The owl moved a little, the shuffle of her wings resembling a shrug.</p><p>Horowitz paused, doused the fag, and collected his thoughts. Then he spoke again, “Thing is, during the four months of investigation, the Director of the Office was persistent about finding the perp. He was terrorizing us into followin' this thing through: daily telegrams, visits, he even got an officer sacked. So, I can't stop thinkin'--why go to such lengths for a damn graffiti? Unless he's not tellin' the truth about nothin' being taken. Right?” He looked at her impatiently as she took a swig of beer.</p><p>Swallowing, she mimicked his frown. “Now you're asking my opinion?"</p><p>Horowitz tilted his head, mouth twitching.</p><p>It took her a moment to decide on an answer that wouldn't be too bold, nor would show too much disinterest. “You said it, I think. The Magisterium might be petty, but not <em> that </em>petty.”</p><p>“Question is, what's in the files, then,” he went on.</p><p>Kat felt Atticus's claws dig deeper into her skin and it took a deal of self-control to not flinch. “What d'you mean, files? What files?”</p><p>“'Twas a secretary's office. There aren't many things to target--they don't keep money in there, or any other valuables. I mean, Miller, somebody broke into a <em> secretary's </em> office through the bloody <em>attic</em>, and then what, they let themselves go at the furniture, spraying anti-Magisterium symbols all over it and fuckin' it up in a fit of blasphemous foul temper? No. There was a dent on a <em>single </em>drawer of a <em>single</em> filin' cabinet. The way I see it, whoever did it, couldn't pick the lock on the drawer and had to break it to take whatever documents were inside. Not many though, the thing was stuffed when we checked it.”</p><p>The bird's grip eased a little. Kat struggled to maintain calm eye contact, so decided to hide her face behind the drink again. She felt exposed and stupid. <em> He's a Sergeant, what the fuck did she expect, that he wouldn't deduce basic, training-level stuff? </em></p><p>Horowitz stroked Stella on the chest with one finger, as he often would when lost in thought, and didn't notice the unease he caused. “But I guess we will never find out now, will we?” he smiled eventually.</p><p>“Yes, shame,” she agreed.</p><p>Then there was a moment of silence between them. Kat turned a dead pint round-and-round with one hand; on the other she still carried her dæmon, brushing his bony feet with her thumb. The detective seemed to be carried away by Laurie's ongoing discourse on Simon Talbot. He had his elbow propped on the tabletop, fingers grazing his lower lip. The thoughtless gesture gave away a want for another smoke.</p><p>Kat reached for the near empty pack of cigarillos discarded in the middle of the evening's mess. The sound from her surroundings started to come back to her.</p><p>“--spent years analyzing centuries of literature that proves otherwise. I am not throwing that away for some Magisterium's miserable lackey,” she heard Laurie say.</p><p>Tiago also presented his view; then Pauline, or Drem, to give him credit, for the dæmon was much confident to address scholastic issues. Kat let the fag hang from her lips while she passed the last of her tobacco to Horowitz. He eagerly accepted.</p><p>“And what's your opinion on the matter?” the detective asked her, tapping the cig on the table.</p><p>Now he genuinely confused her. “I just told you--”</p><p>“No, I mean Talbot,” he laughed softly.</p><p>Kat pointed to Laurie. “You've been listening to him the whole time?”</p><p>“Haven't you?” Horowitz winked at her, then lit his cigarillo.</p><p>She took the box of matches from him. She decided to be blunt. “I'm a realist, Jim. I can also be very pragmatic when it comes to many things, but even I believe some aspects of life shouldn't be viewed through the prism of fundamentalism, be it scientific or religious.”</p><p>“You think Talbot's a fundamentalist?”</p><p>The way he asked his question made Kat a little uneasy, but she continued: “Aren't they both, Talbot and Brande? Fundamentalist materialists. 'Things are nothing more than what they are.' What a horrible thing to say, even worse to live by.”</p><p>“That's only Brande's words, though,” Horowitz said.</p><p>“She's right, Jim," Stella weighed in, to their surprise. "You forget that Talbot, too, believes that the projection of dæmons is nothin' but a mutation of brain cells. So even though he doesn't go as far with his theory as Brande, he does suggest that dæmons are a mere epiphenomena of a certain material process.”</p><p>“I say someone's been paying attention to their reading.” Kat was in awe and tried not to show it, but it was apparent. She even forgot about her cig, which now burned away between her fingers.</p><p>“You do believe in a higher power, then?” Horowitz asked.</p><p>“Mhm. I believe in all sorts of things. Does that strike you as odd?”</p><p>“Like you said, you come 'round as a practical person.”</p><p>“And like I said, I am. In a way. But you forget I live with the gyptians, and their worldview is very... infectious, as well as it is beautiful. When you live so close to the River for so long, you start to notice things that are far beyond reason; things that are so much more than what they really are. The spirits, the old gods, the Moon, the Stars.”</p><p>“That kind of talk could get you into trouble, Miller.”</p><p>Judging by the tone, he didn't mean it as a threat, but it did sound like a warning, which was equally irritating. Atticus shuffled, and turned, and scratched her hand. Was Horowitz misleading her into saying something wrong that he could use against her?</p><p>Kat flicked the unsmoked cigarillo into a glass, where it sizzled and died in a puddle of leftover beer. Her voice was tense when she said, “Yes. How sad, Sergeant, isn't it? That the Church seeks to eradicate these beliefs, 'cause they seem to be so far from their own teachings? Instead of incorporating everything that elevates people's lives and gives them comfort into something more complex. Shame mutual respect never earned nobody power to rule over the rest.”</p><p>“Y'know, for a barmaid you got an awful lot to say."</p><p>Horowitz wasn't being disrespectful, nor was she angry with him, but because of the lack of sleep combined with minor nausea from the drink sloshing in her empty stomach, and the dizziness caused by the thoughts and conspiracies flowing through her brain like river rapids, she suddenly found his remarks a little aggravating.</p><p>This was the breaking point. Her own emotions and her dæmon's had finally met in a clash; anxiety, uncertainty and defiance emerging and falling again, and breaking against one another. </p><p>The chaos filled her up completely. And all it took was someone implying she should be careful with her words.</p><p>“And you still hadn't heard half of it, <em>Detective</em>,” she barked.</p><p>“Oh, I'm afraid so,” Horowitz said, the words lined with worry, and within the same breath he added apologetically, “The next round is on me, I guess.”</p><p>Kat scoffed.</p><p>Looking him up and down for the hundredth time that night, she decided this man could stop oceans crashing against cliffs with his kind heart, if he just tried.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. A Recollection</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Too much sweat and tears, and editing went into this chapter. Should be a breather, to help settle all the hints from earlier: any observations and comments on whether the chapter is clear and comprehensive are much appreciated.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> London, January 2006 </em>
</p><p>Kat regretted taking the Chthonic railway home from White Hall the moment she stepped into the carriage. It only took the underground train half an hour to travel all the way to the end station at Limehouse, but the stale air and the constant rocking made her nausea much worse; so bad in fact, the short journey resulted in her vomiting copiously over the brick wall that divided the station exit from the canal.</p><p>Hunched over the concrete parapet, she rested her forehead upon the cold surface, eyes closed tight as she tried to steady herself. Atticus sat beside, barking and hiccuping. She breathed in, a loud and deep breath through the nose. The air smelled after the rain still; the kind of ungraspable fragrance of wet cobblestone, earthy and invigorating.</p><p>Quivering legs carried her and her dæmon along the wall, past the houses on Clarice Walk, through a bridge over the canal, and finally down the stairs to the riverbank and the Limehouse Marina.</p><p>Few clusters of boats were moored at the wharves for most gyptian families had left for the Fens long before Christmas and would remain there until the Spring season. The river in the bay was still. It reflected the lights from the boats' windows and deck lanterns steadily, as well as the dark bulk of the stone houses and the inn, the warehouse, the covered fish market, and the boatyard that enclosed it from three sides. On the fourth side, the wide mouth of the bay opened gaping into the Thames, or Tamesis as she was better known in these parts, which then ran further to the East, by Canary Wharf and Foulness Island, to where she would meet the Sea in a wild embrace.</p><p>Only Kat's narrowboat, Voedritz--named after a brook somewhere in the middle of the old Continent, sat on the water dark and silent, its indigo-blue and brass hull wedged between the Koopman's barge and Tony Costa's butty, from which there came a distant sound of radio.</p><p>Kat shuffled her feet, and staggered as she walked the gangplank and across the Koopman's deck, and climbed down the boarding steps to the bow of her own boat. Atticus clawed at the thick woollen collar of her jacket, not sitting upright but rather hanging down, rocking negligently from side to side and somehow making the situation worse.</p><p>She stopped to fumble with the keys and the shoelaces of her muddy boots before taking a step further, into the cabin. Then she felt their way through the door and to the other side of the lounge area, where an anbaric floor lamp was stood, the sole source of light apart from a heating stove.</p><p>“Ow--Basszus!” <em> Dammit</em>, Kat cried when a lurking corner of a coffee table dealt a blow to her shin. Atticus yelped and flapped to whatever surface was in reach, upsetting something in the process.</p><p>There was a clang, and a thud, and then finally a click of the light switch.</p><p>The lamp flickered with an unpleasant sound before it settled to give off a faint diffused light. The boat was one of the more modern models, fitted with an alternator to supply the modest home with anbaric power, but she was second-hand and it showed.</p><p><em> The batteries will need charging in the morning</em>, Kat thought with a sigh, already feeling a grain of frustration over sitting out in the cold for an eternity and wasting fuel. Maybe she could go to the boatyard and refill the two dead naphtha lamps from the cupboard instead? Or just do without power for a few days, she'll be out at the <em> Row </em>the following nights anyway.</p><p>Going over the possibilities of resolving the never-ending domestic struggle, she hurled herself down on a sofa and her wary eyes stumbled across the interior of the narrowboat.</p><p>It was messy and extraordinary.</p><p>Filled with books and pictures, maps, pamphlets and documents, and the smell of ground coffee, dried herbs, and soiled bed linen; that bodily, wild, lingering scent of a recent intimacy. The sheets were in a dire need of washing, as were the dishes piled up in the miniature sink of the miniature kitchen. The colour of the space accentuated the disorganized aesthetic, with its green and red walls, unmatching tiles, and the chipped painting of flowers and birds on the ceiling that made Voedritz one-of-a-kind.</p><p>More than anything else though, dozens of photograms would steer the gaze of any visitor, standing in their frames on a small bookcase left off the door, or taped to the wooden wall above it. Despite Kat and Atticus being in most of those pictures, anyone who has known them today would have a hard time recognizing them in all those strange settings. One, for instance, was of them and Pol Gallagher in front of the St. Sophia's college in Oxford; another had nine or ten smiling young girls and their dæmons in a similar surrounding, holding a hand-written sign with the words FRESH(WO)MEN 1996 on it; another still seemed to be an old wedding photo. Kat, too, often found it hard to remember those moments, as if they belonged to another person. And in a way, they did.</p><p>“You should light the fire, it's cold in here,” Atticus said all of a sudden from a place on the bookcase where he landed on one of the picture frames, knocking it over.</p><p>With a large yawn Kat stood up obediently, now a little more steady on her feet, dizziness becoming a headache. She dropped her jacket off on the sofa, then kneeled in front of the stove opposite and set out to tear up the newspaper from the growing pile beside the coffee table, to arrange the chips of wood, to grabble around for the flint and steel…</p><p>“And while you do, we can talk about what we have learned,” the bird instructed.</p><p>Kat scoffed. “Atticus, no. We're sick and we're tired, it can wait until morning.”</p><p>“But we're working the night shift--”</p><p>“Exactly,” she stated matter-of-factly, like that was the end of the argument.</p><p>But Atticus continued. “Exactly. Which means we'll sleep in the morning, or throughout the entire afternoon even, for all I care,” he said, then pleaded softly, “Please, it's not even midnight.”</p><p>“Oh, for fuck's--are you kidding me?” she jerked her head in irritation. Through her pressed lips she mumbled, “You didn't even want to go.”</p><p>The dæmon arranged himself, feathers on his head rising. “No, but that doesn't mean the evening hasn't proven itself fruitful and that I don't want to talk about it,” he said. “You know we won't be able to sleep anyway before we have discussed it.”</p><p>She sighed over the crackling sound of wood catching a spark. Flame engulfed the paper, traveled down a splinter, and finally licked at the chips, hesitantly at first, then with a fierce hunger.</p><p>He was right, of course he was.</p><p>“Let me at least put the kettle on,” Kat said.</p><p>Wings rustled and Atticus leapt to her shoulder. “Yes. But not coffee.”</p><p>Another sigh escaped her lips, this one a little morose in a reaction to the dæmon's patronising attitude.</p><p>Kat put the kettle on the heating stove. While the water boiled, she mixed herbs in a pot--dried ginger and chamomile, and crushed fennel seeds, and a dash of lemon balm--in hope that a strong tea will ease the ever present whirlwind in her mind.</p><p>When it was ready, she poured the tea in a cup, checked on the fire--which now burned steadily behind the glass door--and sat down again, blowing at the golden-coloured beverage. Atticus perched himself on the armrest by her elbow.</p><p>"Well, speak away, mister," she prompted with a hint of sarcasm.</p><p>And so he did.</p><p>First, he discussed the break in. How odd the whole thing had been from the start--autumn last year, when the head of Oakley Street herself, Glenys Godwin, had received an anonymous tip about what appeared to be an important bit of documentation. It arrived in a sealed but unmarked envelope: a piece of paper with a location, the exact number of the filing cabinet, and the position of the files in the drawer. Nothing more. No signature, no watermark, no fingerprints. Only an assumption that it came from inside the Office of Inquisition, towards which it pointed.</p><p>At first, it had been thought to be a trap, a strange lead and too obvious. But the more it had been discussed between agents, and the more perspectives had been explored, the more often it would wake Godwin out of her sleep. After some time she had decided to give it a shot. And that's also when Kat and Atticus had come into the picture, with their experience in information extraction and a wide circle of dubious associates.</p><p>The break in itself had been easy enough. As Horowitz accurately pointed out, they got in via the attic that ran open above the entire wing of the office building and was easily accessible through the adjourning roof, taking advantage of the large vents in the ceilings. It was also true what he said about the busted lock on the filing cabinet drawer--Kat, indeed, couldn't unlock it by other means than prying it open with a screwdriver. The last of his crime scene observations, the sprayed-on anti-Magisterium symbol, had been an angry (though premeditated) statement of their own resistance and a mistake, one that didn't come without consequences.</p><p>About the files Kat didn't remember much, and Atticus anything at all for he had been guarding the door against intruders the whole time. Only thing she could recollect was that they had been filed among what seemed like invoices and other receipts for various services in the Middle and Far East; and that as soon as they exited the Office, they had been passed over to one of her spotters to be delivered to a designated dead drop.</p><p>The two of them hadn't thought about the whole thing afterwards and nobody had mentioned it either. It was assumed another black bag job gone well, until one day a D. S. had arrived at the <em> Murderess Row </em> to prove otherwise. Since then it had been apparent that the documents were important to the Church and that their disappearance caused a lot of fuss.</p><p>By now, the tea was forgotten, getting colder by the minute on the coffee table, and the restless woman was pacing up and down the boat, from the door at the bow to the bed at the stern and back again. Atticus, too, traipsed from side to side on the sofa.</p><p>“Okay, so whatever's in the documents, it's not meant for no eye outside the Church. That much is clear from the fact that they're being kept secret from the Police. The Director wants whoever stole them to be found, so he reports vandalism--which is our own stupid fault--as a reason to conduct investigation, and hopes the Police are either stupid or corrupt enough to not ask too many questions,” Kat said.</p><p>“Enter Horowitz who does exactly that--” Atticus started.</p><p>“And the Chief Inspector shuts him down,” she interrupted.</p><p>“And this is where it gets complicated.”</p><p>“Yes. From what Jim had told us, the Director's wishes aren't in alignment with the Chief's decision. But the Chief is the Magisterium's inside man. So why bite the hand that feeds you?”</p><p>“Well <em> I </em> think he didn't have to,” Atticus said resolutely.</p><p>“What d'you mean?” Kat wondered.</p><p>“Y'know what I mean. We're ain't spoiled for choice. Gardner either suffered some kind of enlightenment or he didn't have to bite that hand. I know it occured to you, too,” Atticus chattered.</p><p>Kat stopped, propping herself against the kitchen counter. She realized she didn't feel sick anymore. Dull, yes, but well. “Mhm…” she murmured. “So let's say somebody else from the Magisterium compelled Gardner to drop the case 'cause Jim was getting ever so close to the real objective of the investigation. It'd have to be somebody whose orders would eventually have to be respected even by the Director of the Office of Inquisition.”</p><p>“And we both know there's only two bodies above the offices now.”</p><p>Kat bit her lip. <em> The Consistorial Court of Discipline and the High Council</em>. The two bodies with near limitless power over most aspects of life, and lethal, no less. She rubbed her face. “That's just… Isn't it way over the top?”</p><p>“Is it?” Atticus clicked his beak. “I think it's a way for the Church to gain control over the whole thing. It's strange that the Director didn't report it to CCD directly. Maybe he just panicked--that doesn't really matter now. But once the State Police got a hold of the case, the Church had no right to intervene, and this might be how they're dealing with it.”</p><p>“Fine. So what? Whatever's in those files may--or may not--discredit either the CCD or the High Council--”</p><p>“Or both,” Atticus cut in.</p><p>“--but is definitely important enough for the Church to take over an investigation outside its jurisdiction and risk an internal conflict. Which means Oakley Street either has a trump card in their hands, or a ticking bomb. Because I'm sure as hell that if half of what we just said is true, someone would be looking after those files on behalf of the Church as we speak,” Kat concluded.</p><p>Atticus flew to her shoulder. “We must write to Godwin at once.”</p><p>The woman stretched her neck and took a large breath. She tasted fennel and tobacco in her mouth. “Yes. I'll put it in the weekly report,” she said, although her whole body screamed in disagreement.</p><p>Kat dragged herself back to the couch, collected a pencil and a notebook from the table, and from under the mattress pulled a stack of green paper and a battered paperback, its pages loose or taped harshly back into place.</p><p>It was a boating guide, <em> J. M. Pearson and son's Canal Companion to the Kennet &amp; Avon and River Thames </em> (The Fiftieth Anniversary edition!)--a book, which didn't stand out if found in a gyptian home, yet which wasn't a staple in a conventional personal library either. And that made it the perfect key for a book cipher.</p><p>She wrote the report hunched over her crossed legs in the awful light of the lamp and the heating stove, trying to make it as short and comprehensible as possible: a challenging task, given that her choice of words was bound by the <em> Canal Companion's </em> limited vocabulary. After she was done with the plaintext, Atticus assisted with transcribing the report into a code. Kat then rolled the green paper tight into a small spool, and again into a sheet of rolling paper until it resembled a cigarillo (which she would forget on purpose with a generous tip by an empty espresso cup at <em> Chez Isabelle </em> tomorrow. From there it would travel directly inside a pocket of Glenys Godwin's plaid coat).</p><p>The process took at least an hour, so it was no surprise that Kat fell asleep afterwards, right where she sat and fully clothed, both sweaty and cold, and dirty from everything she managed to drag herself against or stagger into that night.</p><p>Atticus leaped to the bookcase, to be closer to the stove, and looked down on her in a slight disgust.</p><p>He hated it when they were drunk; he hated the throbbing ache and illness of a hangover; but more than anything he hated the fact that he was no longer able to stop her from falling down to the bottom of a bottle every time she felt worthless. That is why, instead of feeling concerned over a possible scheme they just started to uncover, he felt hopeful, for the amount of work needed in such dire situations sure would distract his other half from spirits for a while.</p><p>As he pondered further about their discussion, the stiffness caused by anxiety and cold slowly left him. The sound, and heat, and comfort of the fire filled his body and mind. His lids have become heavy and Atticus let himself be lulled into sleep by the rocking of the boat.</p><p>The jay-dæmon didn't ever notice the forgotten lamp in the lounge flicker yet again, once, twice, a couple of times, till it almost resembled the dance of the fire, before the power from the batteries had all been drained. </p><p>The light had gone out before the flames had gone cold, the last on the dark and still waters of Thames. </p><p>***</p><p>Tony Costa was sound asleep when an ignition alarm woke him up, followed by the mighty rumble of a boat engine. His messy dark head moved with a jolt and he looked up from where he lied face down on his broken down bed to his dæmon Lyuba. The hawk squatted above him, a lump of rustled brown-and-white feathers, her eyes half-open. They exchanged an annoyed look.</p><p>The man rolled over and crawled to peer out the stern door. A pair of unlaced boots and bulky woolen socks came into view, those of his neighbour, sticking out from under her skirt and dangling playfully in the air. He stuck his head out a little more still, to have a better look.</p><p>She sat on the roof of her narrowboat, wrapped up head to toe in knitwear, a cigarillo between the lips, a thick stack of the Sunday newspaper in hand, a steaming mug of what smelled like coffee by her side. The hatch on her boat's stern was wide open, steam rising from the surface of a running gas engine, the force of which shook the hull and stirred the water beneath.</p><p>“The fuck you doing, Badger?” Tony croaked. He felt a breath of air on the back of his neck as Lyuba drifted soundlessly to his shoulder, then out into the open where she joined Atticus circling the sky.</p><p>Kat looked down on him with a frown, breathing the cigarillo smoke out of her nose. “Charging.”</p><p>“Woke me up, hasn't you,” he complained.</p><p>“It's one in the afternoon, Tony Costa,” Kat mumbled over the cig hanging from her lower lip, an impressive skill she cultivated into perfection.</p><p>“So now what. Was working late into the night!”</p><p>“You were home even before I came at half past nine and listened to the cricket match reprise on the radio till early morning," Kat said dryly, smoke puffing as she did. The newspaper rustled when she bent it in half, lay it over her knees, and wrote something in pencil into the margins.</p><p>Tony shook his head and an amused smile animated his face. "How do you always know everything?"</p><p>"I'd grown a pair of eyes and ears." Kat set the paper and pencil aside and removed the cigarillo so that she could drink the still steaming beverage in three large gulps. She drew at the cig, a big breath which made the rolling paper burn brightly, then threw the half-smoked stub into the mug. “You wanted anything?” </p><p>“Any more where that's come from?” said Tony after a brief pause, eyeing the mug.</p><p>The woman laughed heartily. “Hop over and help y'self, you poor sod.”</p><p>Minutes later, Tony was joining her in the back, but no sooner than taking a stop at the kitchen, where he poured himself coffee from a large brass pot. He remained standing, for despite the shy sun the day was still cold and he couldn't but wonder how Kat wasn't freezing her arse off, sitting on the frostbitten metal roof.</p><p>He turned his face to the sky. Their dæmons soared above their heads, having fun scaring the seagulls and pigeons away. Then he squinted at his friend, who again scribbled vigorously over the printed words in the newspaper.</p><p>“You look like shit,” Tony said.</p><p>Kat looked up. She smiled at him softly, a sad and shameful smile, and stroked his nose with the tip of her finger as she would. Her brown eyes were set amid unhealthy dark circles and troubled, although bright as always.</p><p>“Feel like it, too,” Kat said and before he had a chance to ease into the following silence, she asked "Tony?"</p><p>"Mm?" he reacted, grimacing over the mug of the impossibly strong brew.</p><p>She tapped the pencil against the newspaper--an agitated tap, tap, tap--as she gazed over the bay. The features of her face hardened. “I think I need help with something… That mate of yours still working at the Cabinet Council offices?”</p><p>“Rob? Yeah, but he's only a post boy. Why?”</p><p>“That's all I could hope for. I need to know 'bout everything that happens in White Hall in the upcoming week. Every word out of the ordinary. No--” she made a sudden pause and stabbed at the air with a finger, “--every word.” </p><p>Tony whistled. “Ambitious. And won't be cheap neither.”</p><p>Kat hesitated for a beat and a pained scowl ghosted her expression. But then she said, “I know.”</p><p>Without a further addition she jolted upward, crossed the roof, and disappeared inside the cabin. Somehow, Tony knew she would return with a generous roll of sovereigns.</p><p>Tony watched her with a slight confusion. His eyes fell to the pile of clutter she left behind: the dirty mug, and the newspaper, and the pencil that was now spinning away down the length of the boat-roof.</p><p>As he catched a glimpse of something unsettling, Tony's frown deepened. He set his coffee down and reached for the paper. Immediately the creases on his forehead softened as his confusion cleared, only to be replaced by the look of irritation.</p><p>“Oh!” he exclaimed.</p><p>His eyes traced one of the titles on the front page again and again. It was printed in a subtle font in the lower left corner, and easily missed weren't it circled repeatedly by Kat earlier:</p><p>
  <b>King confirms private audience with President Delamere of the High Council on Wednesday. Council of State to release statement first thing tomorrow.</b>
</p><p>"Oh, <em> fuck</em>…"</p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. The Lord Commissioner</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p><b>TW: There's minor police brutality / authority abuse hinted at in the beginning of the chapter.</b> Due to the recent events in the US and elsewhere, I'm warning about this in advance. It's just a paragraph or two, but one's better safe than sorry.</p><p>Going through some references I realised, I was too ambitious making <b>Horowitz</b> a Detective Inspector at his age, so <b>I back down-ranked him to a Detective Sergeant:</b> he won't appear for some time, but I'm telling you in advance so it doesn't come as too much of a shock. Also, after consulting my timeline, I've realised that the following chapters of the fanfic take place some time (I'm planning on max a week, but God knows) after the last chapter of The Secret Commonwealth and thus may be a little canon divergent. I'm trying not to create too many major headcanon political events, but some are key to my story. Have a little mayhem planned, so I hope you're going to enjoy it. For better orientation about who is who in Lyra's world as opposed to ours, from what I was able to take from Philman (but maybe I'm wrong, in which case correct me): Cabinet Council = Cabinet Office, Council of State = Her/His Majesty's Government.</p><p>Thanks so much for the hits and feedback, it is much appreciated! I've also started to add chapter illustrations--first two chapters have them so far, and my beta and I are working on more. So if you're into that, go check them out!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
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  <em> London, January 2006 </em>
</p><p>A Master of the Jordan College in Oxford had said once wisely: <em> “Men and women are moved by tides much fiercer than you can imagine, and they sweep us all up into the current.” </em></p><p>But of course, except for him and the girl to whom these words were addressed, no one could know, although many had felt the fierce power of those tides.</p><p>Or rather, were soon about to.</p><p>The statement, which the Council of State had issued on Monday was vague at best, confusing at worst. It indicated that His Majesty's Government was in the dark about what the nature of President Delamere's private audience might be. At the least that it wasn't expected, if not outright surprising. The fact that the President circumvented both the Government and the King's own Private Council, his closest advisory board, was telling though, and it left the people indifferent.</p><p>Rumors started to spread all over the country like wildfire that the remaining indications of independence of the governing bodies from the Magisterium would be eradicated, and the last bits of freedom with it. The news sparked fear, and soon enough the fear manifested into a resistance.</p><p>In only two days the free-speech advocates gathered and had organized a forum of some two hundred attendees in Westminster, to address the importance of freedom, community, mutual respect, and the dangers of orthodoxy and authoritarianism. Despite its harmless nature, the forum was declared blasphemous and heretical by the Church and as such had been suppressed harshly by the CCD while the State Police stood aside and did nothing.</p><p>The police were labelled cowards by most, and deemed lost to the rule of the Church. Some, like Kat, hoped there still could be honest people found among their ranks, with their minds set on justice. Like Jim Horowitz, for instance, about whom she found herself thinking a lot due to these circumstances, though Atticus was always there to promptly return her to reality and remind her, they have their own skin to worry about.</p><p>He wasn't wrong, the world around them began to crumble and danger was closing in.</p><p>Kat had met with Faust and decided they should lie low so as not to attract any attention, but had hardly the time to consult with Oakley Street in such a short timespan. There came no reaction to the weekly report; Tony's contact at the Cabinet Council also yielded nothing as of yet.</p><p>Essentially, they were groping in the same dark as everyone else.</p><p>Thus, Kat decided to focus on her work at the club, taking on a lot of overtime, which she hoped would help her not to fall into complete desperation. And so did Atticus.</p><p>Presently, she was running late to her afternoon and night shift. It was the day after President Delamere's audience with the King of Brytain and the turmoil in the streets started to clear, unlike the confusion behind the walls of White Hall Palace and the <em> Murderess Row </em> club.</p><p>“Are you all right, darling?” Faust's voice came ringing across the empty dance hall as Kat emerged from the backstage. She huffed while she fumbled with the disheveled white work-blouse and failing, missing a button and having to start over. A black apron fell from her shoulder in a tangled bundle.</p><p>“Yes, sorry I'm late,” Kat mumbled, making sure the last button fell into its place and that the strap of the apron was tied in a neat bow, then looked up. “The CCD were busy tormenting some lad who's been putting up posters 'round Abbey Orchard and I took a wrong turn, and before I realized what time it was I got lost in the alleys.”</p><p>Atticus winged and weaved around the pillars and to the bar, where he greeted Savva politely. The hound lay in front of the bar counter, whereas his person stood behind it, above an opened register and several neat piles of banknotes. Both radiated grace and gentleness, and in the midst of all the disarray looked almost otherworldly.</p><p>Faust let out a soft sigh. “Do be careful staying out of trouble.”</p><p>“I know, Olivia. I try,” Kat said, coming to stand by Faust's side. She did her best to sound reassuring, but frustration burned inside her. Although she understood the importance of staying active and available in the field until a greater fight came calling, it took a deal of self-restraint not to lay herself in the way of wrong-doing and act upon the rage which filled her. Atticus, to whom self-discipline meant even less, was also embittered by their passiveness. He was taciturn as ever and rarely spoke his mind the past two days.</p><p>The club was empty, to be opened in an hour, but even so Kat lowered her voice as she asked, “Any word from our friends?”</p><p>“I'm afraid not,” Faust said.</p><p>There came a grunt of discontent from Kat.</p><p>“Is there a reason you ask?”</p><p>“No, I guess not. It's just been a while and… I don't know, I have a… predtuchu, a funny feeling,” Kat said. The strange sensation of missing the step of a ladder followed her still, since last Friday night, and she couldn't shake it. It was a feeling of anticipation, but of the wrong kind, that sent cold shivers crawling down her neck. “So much is happening and I feel we're missing our chances here.”</p><p>Faust turned away from her task of counting yesterday's earnings and held the younger woman's chin between her fingers in a gentle gesture, both compassionate and a little condescending for it was meant to direct her attention. “We must be patient. Glenys does have a great deal of agenda to take care of and right now, we do, too. I need you to be my right-hand woman, before you're an agent,” she said.</p><p>Kat jerked her head a little to the side. What Faust said displeased her, because she gave off a feeling of disinterest about the concern Kat shared. And, well, she wasn't anyone's right-hand anything either. Not to come across as rude or ungrateful though, she gave Faust a stiff smile. “I try,” was all she managed to repeat.</p><p>Faust's jaw clenched and her mouth twisted in a moment of uncontrolled affect. She looked to be biting down an unpleasant remark, but instead returned the half-smile. “Well, what do <em> you </em> want to be doing?”</p><p>“I don't know, Olive. Something? I-- do we <em> have </em> to wait for Godwin's allowance every time? I could go out, and do a little digging, maybe I could--”</p><p>“No. No, you couldn't, Miller. We need to abide hierarchy and follow procedure. And I do hope I mustn't remind you: your reports might be to her, but Godwin doesn't pay you. I do. As far as you are concerned, what I say, goes,” Faust said through her pursed lips. The tone of her words was light, her message ominous. “Do you understand?”</p><p>Kat flinched away and scowled in the manner of a disdainful child, chewing on her tongue.</p><p>“Do you <em> understand </em>?” Faust repeated with an insistence.</p><p>“Yes,” came an answer.</p><p>“Good,” Faust said, then sharply sucked in a breath of air and added: “Now, start inventorizing the liquor, please, so we can be done with it before the evening peaks.” A semblance of spite ghosted her delicate face when she turned her gaze back to her task at the register.</p><p>“Yes, ma'am,” said Kat with a hint of contempt, but not sooner than she turned her back to Faust. Her features, too, were distorted by a rush of emotion.</p><p>Indifference was an awful thing. Especially when it clashed with a person's own motivation and started to turn the needles of their moral compass, or to gnaw on their determination. In Faust's case, Kat was sometimes unsure of whether her motivation--the club--wouldn't also clash with her goodness once the tides came turning. She fiercely believed in the matron's loyalty to Oakley Street and their cause, but at the end of the day, Faust always would be but a businesswoman acting in her self-interest.</p><p>Those were Kat's worries, and her dæmon's, as they dragged a step ladder from the storeroom. The rest of the staff were already scattered all over the club, making themselves useful cleaning tables and rearranging chairs. The cash register stood now abandoned--Faust must have retreated to the safety of her office.</p><p>With Atticus settled in his accustomed place on her right shoulder, preening the unruly strands of her hair, Kat put the steps down and with a heavy sigh set to work.</p><p>***</p><p>She was still distracted by the tedious chore of counting full bottles when the afternoon started to blend seamlessly into the evening.</p><p>As she did go through the caskets of champagne, wines, triple sec and vodka, and bottles of colourful syrups, the kegs of beer and cider, her mind would wander to the even more laborious part of the inventory, which would be done after closing--measuring the partial containers. She broke sweat only by thinking about it. It was all good though. She felt calm, like she always would doing manual work, enjoying a rare moment of a still mind.</p><p>But because of the inventory and a bunch of ridiculous orders, which took forever to prepare (everybody was in the mood for cocktails for some reason), Kat never noticed the slight change to her work routine--namely that despite the hour, the anticipated peak of which Faust spoke earlier wasn't coming.</p><p>Only a few clerks sat at the tables, as well as other men and women most of whom worked in the Magisterium's offices: cleaners, accountants, plumbers, and cooks, drivers and telegraphists. Some students were there, in need of a shot of something strong before their exams. So were their professors, in a similar mindset. But there were no clergymen, who would otherwise come by each day and contemplate over a glass of wine, or two, which were permitted by the moderation guidelines.</p><p>Even Atticus failed to spy this difference as he was too busy commanding Kat around: “Clean your tools. Wipe the counter. You forgot to dress those Whisky Sours! Draw that pint again, the head doesn't look right. We need more limes!”</p><p>Weren't they so absorbed in running around and bickering, they would notice the missing patrons, and would even be able to overhear the talk from those present; about tightening regulations on temperance, new faces at the Ministry of Theology, and a worldwide hunt after a young woman named Belaqua...</p><p>Aching and blushing with exhaustion, Kat emerged from the storeroom. While she made herself busy at the back, Atticus guarded the register, alight atop of it.</p><p>“Mallory placed an order. Two double gins and a blended malt scotch on the rocks. She'll be back in a minute, had to go to the loo,” he said matter-of-factly.</p><p>Kat sighed. Rubbing her brow with the back of her hand, she walked to the counter and tried to find a space to put three glasses, but the bar was an utter mess--bottles taken out of racks, scattered herbs, spilled sugar. In the middle of the aisle lay a keg of lager ready to be tapped, on which she tripped at least twice already. Her runner was nowhere to be seen, the dishes piling up in the wash basin.</p><p>Eventually, she cleared a spot wide enough to put down a tray. Before she had the glasses of gin poured, Mallory, the waitress with the fox-dæmon, appeared and walked up to her.</p><p>“D'you have the order ready for me yet?” she asked, peaked over Kat's shoulder and brushed a palm over her back.</p><p>“Just a second,” said Kat, closing the gin and looking for the scotch, which seemed to be hopelessly lost among the other bottles of brown liquor. The familiar touch of Mal's hand running down the length of her spine didn't help much to concentrate.</p><p>“Slow down, honey, I'm not in a hurry,” Mallory said. The words poured like honey from her lips. She was leaning casually against the counter, inches from Kat; confident, mischievous, insufferable, her black curls wild and smelling of perfume and smoke.</p><p>Kat stopped to take a breath. From the corner of her eye she could see Atticus take wing and disappear above their heads. He chattered loudly in a fit of temper--he disliked the waitress, just like he disliked anyone who ever got too close to his person. Figuratively and literally.</p><p>“Sorry, I'm out of it tonight,” Kat laughed.</p><p>"I can see that. You need to come down your high. Up for a drink later?" Mallory suggested. </p><p>"Can't, I'm here all night until morning. Need to finish this," Kat gesticulated to the disorganized bar. "Olivia's in a mood and I don't want to deal with her a second longer than I need to," she added before Mal could waste a breath on an argument.</p><p>“Suit y'self.”</p><p>“Why, you need a friendly ear to hear your woes?” Kat teased with a smile.</p><p>“Me? Oh, heavens no. But you look like you could use some of that,” said Mallory.</p><p>“Y'know what,” Kat said with a hint of frustration. “I'm really getting tired of being told what I look like by everyone.”</p><p>Mallory laughed. “At least people give a shit about you, idiot,” she said, being so close Kat could feel her warm breath on her cheek. It was a pleasant sensation, distracting to the point that Kat reached for the wrong bottle of liquor.</p><p>“No, the blended malt,” Mallory advised and let out a small giggle, awfully amused by the confusion she caused.</p><p>Her hand stroked Kat's lower back and while the barmaid prepared the correct drink, her touch drifted much lower. Kat could almost physically feel the chastising look of her dæmon perched above them on a lampshade. The thought of being seen by an unwanted pair of eyes crossed her mind as well and she gave Mal a nudge with her elbow, but the waitress didn't seem to be too preoccupied by the idea of getting caught and neither was she too subtle about what she was doing.</p><p>“Be careful with the scotch, you don't want to spill it,” Mallory pestered, noticing the sudden unsteadiness of her colleague's hands.</p><p>Her fingers now traced the curve of Kat's buttock and Kat couldn't help it but stare back at her; at the line of her shoulder, and the soft spot of russet brown skin between her collarbone and neck where the collar of her shirt opened. The glass in front of them was already filled with double the amount of scotch it was supposed to. The bottle was dangerously tipped in Kat's hand.</p><p>When her wandering gaze reached Mal's lips, the woman unexpectedly shied away, jerked her hand, and staggered backward in an abrupt and clumsy way, as if she touched a piece of burning cinder. For a quarter of a second Kat thought it was because she spilled the liquor and it gave her a start, then realised Mallory's eyes were wide with surprise and dread for a different reason. She turned.</p><p>A quartet of men stood at the entrance. </p><p>All were dressed in suits and well-kept, but of harsh features and with vicious, toothy smiles. Even underneath the bad lighting, their attire could be recognized--the ochre and navy blue stripes of their ties, and the pins on the lapels of their jackets. It was this that gave the waitress a fright. They belonged to the CCD.</p><p>All but one gentleman, who wore a black tie instead of a striped one: the largest of the group, and the one around whom the rest gathered like dogs would around a wolf. It was him, who spoke first as he looked about:</p><p>“This is the famous <em> Murderess Row</em>, then. Interesting. I only imagined it was much--” he began.</p><p>“--bigger?” one of the CCD men finished for him.</p><p>“Glamorous,” the first man corrected. “But then again, we all lose our spark over the years.”</p><p>The witty remark earned him a round of pretentious laughter, which was interrupted by a waiter who approached to get the company seated. He compelled them to take one of the snugs on the right.</p><p>Atticus flew down to Kat's shoulder. She put the bottle of scotch down after a long moment of clutching it thoughtlessly, and exchanged an alarmed look with Mallory, who presently pretended to be slicing limes, which Kat had left abandoned on the counter hours earlier. Her fox-dæmon squeezed himself between her heels, his tail swinging from side to side.</p><p>In both women, the thrill of intimacy changed into something much different; a pressure in the throat that left them breathless. Their dæmons shared the instinctive reaction to the presence of a predator; a fear has overcome them that they couldn't explain at first.</p><p>And it wasn't just them.</p><p>The entire atmosphere at the establishment changed in a heartbeat, as if someone turned the volume down on a radio. Heads turned also, as people stole glances at the strangers, which were then followed by hushed whispers.</p><p>“You think they saw?” Mallory whined. Now it was her whose hands were shaking.</p><p>“Saw what? You've been waiting for a take out,” Kat said resolutely and with a swift motion arranged the prepared drinks on the tray, which she then handed over to the waitress, her face still and stiff like a statue's. She did her best to comfort Mallory with a single long gaze--and succeeding, judging by the way Mal toughened up almost immediately.</p><p>Mallory took a deep breath and hurried off, her dæmon trailing behind.</p><p>“Do we know them?” Kat whispered to Atticus. She moved a little to the side, fiddling with the dishes at the basin, so that they would have a better view.</p><p>The waiter who seated them was eager to take an order from the four men--yessir this, and yessir that, recommending the best wines and brandies, and cigars. From what Kat could hear from the bar, there never had been a more pleasant member of staff.</p><p>“I remember two of them vaguely from someplace, but the big one must be new around these parts,” the dæmon replied with confidence.</p><p>“Something about him chills me to the core.”</p><p>“And not just you. Look,” Atticus said, opening his wings in distress.</p><p>On the other side of the club there started an upheaval: patrons cleared the tables, scurrying out the door as if they were fleeing a flood. Normally, she wouldn't give a damn. It wasn't the first time people didn't want to spend their evening in the presence of the CCD henchmen after all. Problem was, many of those leaving were yet to settle their tabs.</p><p>When some of them tried to sneak past the bar, Kat darted from behind the counter to block their way.</p><p>“Hang on, Jerry, you haven't paid yet!” she reminded a short gyptian man and pulled at his sleeve as he struggled to reach the exit. His hawk let out a cautionary shriek. Atticus ruffled his feathers.</p><p>“I'll pay ya tomorrow, luv,” Jerry said.</p><p>“Like hell you will!” Kat exclaimed and tightened the grip on his shirt. “What's gotten into you lot?”</p><p>"Come off it, Badge,” came another voice. It was Mr Barton, a clerk at one of the Magisterial offices. “Look, I'll pay for him, and the lads I was with, and you can keep the change, alright? Just come off it." His words were jittery, as were his fingers. He counted far too many notes from his money clip and gave them to her.</p><p>This didn't make sense.</p><p>"What the hell, Mr Barton?" Kat scolded.</p><p>“I'm sorry, I really am. But I cannot afford to be seen here by <em> him </em>--” He allowed himself a glimpse at the newly arrived party--who still chatted with the waiter--and emphasised the word as if it described the Devil himself. The men didn't notice the turmoil they caused, or at least pretended not to. “Believe me if I say my job depends on it.”</p><p>“What are you talking about? <em> Who </em> is he?”</p><p>“You mean you do not recognize him?” When Kat gave him a confused no, the clerk continued, “He's Lord Commissioner Lawrence Hazlett. Of the High Council. He's being stationed in London as the President's delegate to handle all his matters here in England.”</p><p>A shudder ran from the top of Kat's head to her toes, as if she had been struck by lightning. “Shit,” she cussed.</p><p>“Indeed,” Mr Barton said, then tipped his hat. “Good evening to you, my girl. Stay safe.” With that he hurried out the door, followed by his mates and a relieved Jerry.</p><p>Some dozen guests remained, who were equally confused by the change of mood as the staff, and whose faces suggested they wouldn't be staying for much longer. A disastrous evening for a club of the size of <em> Row</em>.</p><p>Mallory returned with an empty tray and a frown attached to her brow. “What happened? The fuck does all this mean?” she asked.</p><p>Kat wondered. The ground underneath her feet rocked and swayed, or at least felt so, and a headache split her vision.</p><p>“This, my dear...” she said to Mallory while she half-listened to the waiter who managed to complete the order at last and was now asking for a bottle of Tokay, “...means the beginning of an end.”</p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Where The Loyalty Lies</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
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  <em> London, January 2006 </em>
</p><p>It only took a moment or two for the hum of the club to return: the curious newcomers made themselves comfortable and ignored their surroundings, and clearly the remaining surroundings decided it was best to follow suit.</p><p>Kat stood motionless in front of the bar, with Atticus still nested on her shoulder. It was obvious she was thinking hard about something. The waiter, who had taken an order from the Lord Commissioner and his men, shuffled his feet impatiently by her side, waiting to be handed what he had asked for.</p><p>Seconds passed and nothing happened, so he tried to call out to her: “Kat!”</p><p>“Yes, Charlie, a bottle of Tokay, I heard you. Relax, go have a smoke, I'll take care of it,” Kat retorted in a whisper. His fidgety presence made it impossible to concentrate. Luckily, he didn't have to be asked twice; he was gone in a flash, with a relieved sigh on his lips.</p><p>“What do we do?” Mallory inquired, wide-eyed.</p><p>In an insisting tone Kat said, “Go fetch Olivia. Quick.”</p><p>The waitress went as she was bid, the auburn and white tail of her dæmon brushing off the floor behind her.</p><p>With Atticus snuggled close, Kat returned behind the counter. She reached for four glasses to fill with water to go with the wine, tried to handle the water pitcher, found her hands were trembling too much, put the pitcher back down.</p><p>“Slowly,” the dæmon advised. “Breathe, observe.”</p><p>It was easier said than done for she still felt the weight of the unexpected and imminent danger sitting on her chest. After a moment, as fear started to melt into excitement, she picked up the jug again. While she readied the basics, she allowed herself a look.</p><p>Two of the CCD officers were heinously looking and from what could be heard, their laugh was similarly animalistic as their demeanour. The third man seemed to be meek and reserved, with a look of regret or guilt in his eyes. He was smiling as well on whatever remarks passed at the table, but the emotion was distant, as if he did so more out of politeness than a sense of being entertained. While Kat couldn't identify it before, now she began to realise that the dread she instinctively felt at the sight of the lot wasn't much because of their costume, but because their dæmons couldn't be seen, which made of a queer impression. But as the men relaxed, their companions showed--all small creatures, reptiles and bugs, which was uncommon for law enforcement.</p><p>“They must be from the offices. White collars,” Atticus offered and she concurred.</p><p>And then there was the Lord Commissioner, as Mr Barton referred to him.</p><p>The strange title wasn't the only peculiar thing about the man. He was tall and broad, and fairly young (or at least of such complexion), and it only took one glance to know he wasn't a clergyman. He posed himself at the corner of the table, spread confidently in his seat and leaning against the burgundy upholstery. It was this and the way he carried himself before that suggested he had the disposition of an entrepreneur or of aristocracy: that he wasn't only big in built, but also in ego, and was accustomed to being the authority in the room, rather than obeying others. Kat was surprised to see a minuscule weasel-like dæmon peer from behind the collar of his jacket, a polecat or a marten maybe.</p><p>She poured the water and readied the bulky glasses for the sweet white wine, making sure they were all immaculate, with not a spot or scratch on them. Then, she walked into the storeroom to fetch the bottle.</p><p>Before Kat could find the Tokay among the dark silhouettes of Montrachet, and Semillon, and Riesling, all resting in the shelves hidden in the shady, cool corner of the vast space where the lamp-light wouldn't reach, she heard steps scurrying into the room and out of it, then back again.</p><p>“Miller?” came Faust's agitated voice.</p><p>“Here!” Kat announced and emerged empty-handed from the shadows to catch a glimpse of Mallory and her fox peeking from behind one of the doors, then disappearing.</p><p>“What's all the fuss, then?” Faust asked. “Mal said something about CCD.”</p><p>“Yes. Three CCD officers. The fourth man with them is a stranger, but he scared half of our evening's earnings away without even trying, so we guess he must be a big animal. One of our patrons said he's some Lawrence Hazlett of the High Council.”</p><p>“Of the High Council?” Faust repeated, her tone high in shock, though her curious face implied it wasn't an altogether unpleasant discovery. She paused, then paced a few steps back and forth in thought.</p><p>“No, this is okay. It's fine, we can work with this,” Faust uttered under her breath. As she did, her attitude immediately changed from annoyed to acquisitive and Kat knew too well, she was already devising some opportunistic plan in her head.</p><p>“No, Olivia. This is not <em> good</em>, it's the exact opposite! This is exactly what we feared,” Kat said in a choked-up voice.</p><p>“It will be fine, we'll do what we know best, yes?” Faust fussed, not noticing the ever so slight crease that appeared on Kat's forehead. “But we will deal with who they are later, now we must show our best behaviour. What did they order?”</p><p>“Tokay.”</p><p>“There's a bottle of the 1898 reserve in my office. Go bring it.”</p><p>“As you will,” the barmaid sneered. “What'll <em> you </em> do?”</p><p>“Give them a warm welcome, what else?” Faust said and cocked her head. She looked down to her dæmon, tugging at her blouse and smoothing down her skirt. The borzoi gave an approving nod. She then gave Kat a questioning glimpse, as if surprised to still see her there, and waved her off with a crude gesture. “Go!”</p><p>Kat raised her brows and scrunched her face in distaste, but she obligingly made her way down the corridor.</p><p>“She should've checked her nose, she's got some serious brown rubbing off from all the butt kissing,” Atticus barked, still bearing in mind the conversation from this morning, and the concerns that emerged with it.</p><p>The barmaid grunted in agreement.</p><p>Where Kat's first thought went straight to her talk with Miles that night she had been delivering the documents for Oakley Street, Faust saw a convenience and didn't seem to be worried about the newcomer for a second. It was typical of the matron to be impartial about her guest's dealings--if she wasn't, she would've gone out of business years ago--though for some reason, Kat hoped she would've taken a different approach to this particular situation.</p><p>Well, she thought, dusting off a bottle of the golden wine on her way back, these mercurial ways of the human character are precisely why she never learned to understand people, and why they would never cease to amaze her. Or disappoint.</p><p>***</p><p>Like the day before, Kat walked the corridor to Olivia's office with Atticus on her shoulder, and like the day before, her mind was far away. It was obvious to her what the matron would want to talk about, after all--the Lord Commissioner Hazlett.</p><p>He arrived among the first tonight, accompanied by the same group of lackeys, in a less formal attire than yesterday, and was currently enjoying himself by a bottle of a 1902 Sangiovese from the di Brunelli vineyards in Tuscany, which cost more than what Kat got paid in six months. And again he managed to successfully empty the club to the point where half of the waiting staff had to be sent home because there just wasn't enough work for them.</p><p>Kat, too, had tended to things which she didn't have time for otherwise--dusting the racks, rearranging the storeroom, even reading secretly under the bar (a fascinating study of biblical symbolism in the work of J. M. W. Turner by some young Scholar from Lady Matilda's, which Tiago had passed onto her). While she pretended not to be paying too much attention, Atticus, perched above her head on a cast-iron beam, examined the Lord Commissioner and his companions closely. Until Faust had them called in to her office a moment ago, that was.</p><p>A strange occurrence made her snap out of her musings. Atticus let out a curious bark.</p><p>Instead of a lone door at the end of the corridor, to which they were accustomed, there stood two men with their two dog-dæmons, one pair at each side of it. Kat recognized them as the club's guards and it gave her such a start that it never occurred to her what they might be doing there. Instead she wondered, when did they manage to sneak back without her noticing.</p><p>“Allright, fellas? What's this, then?” Kat questioned as she came close.</p><p>“Aright. Dunno, boss' request,” said Teddy, the short and square one. He was known for his sparse approach to words.</p><p>“Fair enough,” Kat snickered and decided further conversation would probably be futile. She was about to knock, when Atticus noticed: </p><p>“There's someone in with her.”</p><p>Sure enough, two different voices could be heard behind the door, though not what they were saying.</p><p>“Olive's got a visitor?” Kat asked no-one in particular.</p><p>This time, Jerome was the one to reply, an exact opposite to his partner--a lanky, thin fellow: “So she does.”</p><p>“Who is it?”</p><p>“No idea, lass. She fetched us at the gate to come and keep a lookout after they'd arrived,” Jerome said. The little shrug of a shoulder and unfocused look of his eyes suggested complete disinterest, which is exactly why Faust called these two: as they had seen and heard just about everything that people were capable of (drunk or sober), seen all sorts of people come to confer with the matron, and been a part of things more or less dubious, they no longer cared about anything as trivial as a secret guest.</p><p>Without further delay, Kat knocked.</p><p>The sound of the voices ceased to be followed up by the sound of steps. The door had been opened a crack for a second, then, upon discovering who stood in front of it, Faust flung it wide and rushed Kat inside. After she closed the door behind her, the matron hurried to take a place on the right, where she propped herself against an antique commode, used by her as a personal bar. The bottles, decanters, and glasses, and tools placed on the top of it rattled as the commode shook under her weight. Savva the hound stood by her side.</p><p>Kat had some sort of pun at the ready for it wasn't usual to see Faust make such a scene, but at the same moment she had forgotten it and her breath stuttered at the sight in front of her.</p><p>An older woman sat behind Faust's desk, whom Kat had the pleasure of meeting once before; dark-eyed, with faultlessly cut, short silver hair, and the dignified posture of a leader. On the desk lay a dæmon in the form of a spotted civet-cat, unmoving and quite strange, for he was paralysed as the barmaid well knew.</p><p>“Mrs Godwin, what a surprise!” Kat's eyes were wide, as was her mouth, gaping at the Director of the Office for Special Enquiry. “But, is this… What if somebody sees--”</p><p>Glenys Godwin stopped her with a simple gesture of the hand. She smiled. “I can handle myself, Ms Miller, though I appreciate your concern.”</p><p>“Of course,” said Kat with a light laugh on her lips, shaking her head at her own silliness. Seeing nobody else acknowledged the humorous momentum though, she awkwardly swallowed another giggle and decided to better remain silent. Atticus also advised to be serious for unlike his person, he almost immediately noticed the mood into which they arrived, charged with disagreement and hostility. For this reason he stayed in his place on her shoulder rather than joining one of the dæmons.</p><p>“I admit our meeting is a little risky, but I had to speak with you both. There are too many thoughts that I couldn't be bothered writing down,” Godwin said. “First, I would like to thank you for your thorough report, Ms Miller. Your instinct has proven to be right on many occasions and I decided to have the files pulled out of the Mausoleum.”</p><p>“And what did you find?” Kat asked gingerly. Her heart jumped and eyes widened some more. Atticus had to steady himself for in apprehension he leaned in too far and almost fell. Finally, they thought, shall they get some answers!</p><p>“Not much, I'm afraid. The documents are of a financial nature, payments for components and equipment for some sort of machines, and firearms, most of which had been delivered to a third party as far as Seleukeia. Part of the details seems to be encrypted, but our friends from Leon are dealing with this as we speak.”</p><p>An audible exhalation came out of Kat's nose as she let out all the air she held in. It was a sound of disappointment.</p><p>“Of course they'd have it encrypted, nasty buggers,” Atticus whispered and fluttered his feathers angrily.</p><p>But his tantrum faded as quickly as it appeared, because they knew that if anyone could crack a Magisterial cipher, it would be the codebreakers from Leon House, or Bletchley Park, as it was often referred to. The old Code and Cypher School had been dismantled ages ago, not forty years after the Swiss War, after the local brains had proved to be useful once more during the second Anglo-Afghan conflict. Despite Brytain being still tangled up in one turmoil or another, the school was never reinstated for some reason, but a number of the former employees haven't forgotten their training or their loyalty to the country, and Oakley Street was more than happy to put both of those things to good use now and then.</p><p>Godwin continued, “But to the point of my visit. Mrs Faust here has updated me on your current situation, and asked me for information and guidance in return. As much as I hate to admit it, there is not much I can tell you; instead I must request you to find out as much as possible about the new Lord Commissioner of the High Council yourselves. You always seem to know where to look, Ms Miller.”</p><p>“Yes, of course. That shouldn't be a problem,” Kat said without giving it a second thought. She knew that sooner or later either Faust or the Office would ask her for a checkup on Hazlett and so she had prepared in advance a whole scheme in her head and a list of contacts in her notebook. “I'll do my best.”</p><p>Godwin gave her another warm smile, but in her eyes Kat recognized the familiar exhaustion and desperation, which she herself has not only experienced, but also observed in too many people in the past few weeks. Behind all that, though, there burned a fire of courage and dedication. The Director seemed to have made a similar judgement about the informant as she studied her intensely while caressing the fur of the civet-cat with lazy, long strokes.</p><p>“Glenys is also of the opinion we should make most of his presence here at the <em> Row</em>,” Faust added in a mocking tone. She sounded reproachful.</p><p>“Make most of his presence?” Kat parroted.</p><p>“I meant to make use of your extraordinary skill for extracting information from an individual. It would be very helpful were you at his disposal anytime: seating him, serving his drinks, lending an ear. And learning all you can in the process,” said Godwin.</p><p>Kat, again, was perhaps too quick to answer. “Yes, I'll do it. It's an opportunity.”</p><p>Faust shuffled impatiently in her place and sighed. Godwin smirked. “Olivia is of a different opinion,” she explained.</p><p>“Oh?”</p><p>“The more you're around, the more you're remembered, and I am not sure whether that's what we want, darling,” Faust said.</p><p>“I can be subtle when I need to,” Kat said resolutely. She regretted to see a sardonic look on Faust's face and a momentary draw of a breath, as if for a second there the matron wanted to remind her of the mess she left behind at the Office of Inquisition, but then decided against it. “Olive, this man could be one of the top current echelons of the Church. The chance to gain even the slightest idea of what we're facing is one of a kind. We have to take risks,” she added.</p><p>Godwin seemed delighted to have a word of support, but the keen, hasty reaction only deepened the tension in the room, as well as Faust's frown. She grew more fidgety by the second and by her flared nostrils, Kat guessed it was anger that was getting the best of her. She remembered their little argument; what Faust said about her own word being the last, and felt a pang of guilt. But then, it was also her, who said to abide by the hierarchy and had hurried to carry the man on her arms and gift him reserve wines not twelve hours before.</p><p>“We will know what we are facing when you finish your research. That should be enough, it always is, and that is how we work,” Faust argued.</p><p>“What if it won't be, this time, hm?” Kat said. “We didn't know who he was prior to yesterday. Not from newspapers, from previous encounters, from gossip, not even from our Cabinet Council contact. Which means he's either a very private person, or a very careful one.”</p><p>“Exactly! Which means he is dangerous!”</p><p>Kat moaned loudly in frustration. She was ready to continue her exchange with Faust, when the Director stepped into it:</p><p>“Olivia, please. If I must beg, I absolutely will, that's how desperate I am right now. Our people are being attacked and taken away in broad daylight--” she started, only then she realized what she just said and a sharp sigh cut off the rest of her sentence. Clearly, it wasn't her intent to emotionally coerce anyone, or to share too much of her troubles, but it nibbling on her mind day and night, the news finally found its way out. She as well could have dropped a bomb inside the room, that's how violent the reaction was.</p><p>Kat raised her palm. “I'm sorry, <em> what </em>?”</p><p>At the same time, Faust sprung away from the commode, “Glenys!” The exclamation got lost among the clatter of wood, glass, and steel as her sudden movement set the furniture into motion.</p><p>Godwin gave another sigh and rubbed her eyes. Compelled by her dæmon's approval, she said:</p><p>“We had a few incidents in Oxford... A friend at Jordan had been approached by the CCD and nobody heard from her since. We have a witness who says that two men had loaded her into a van and drove her away. Shortly after, there was a scene at Dame Relf's house--I believe both of you have made her acquaintance--during which some documentation, although not at all important, had been seized. And finally, some week ago we lost contact with another of our agents, after he had been attacked and wounded in Smyrna, for a reason we think might have something to do with the rose business… God knows what else has missed our attention. I'm losing my grasp on the whole situation and right now, what is happening here in London might be our best shot.”</p><p>Kat recalled Hannah Relf, the soft-hearted and good-natured Doctor Relf she met those years ago. The idea of the frail woman being harassed by some dim-witted officer half her age for a bunch of paperwork was outrageous, to say the least. The rest of what they heard was too horrifying to even think about.</p><p>Faust was the first to break the dramatic silence that ensued. She took an unsteady step closer to the desk. Wary, with his ears pricked up, Savva followed. “Well… there you have it. Clearly, the CCD is toying with you...  with us. If they know about Hannah--”</p><p>“We do not know whether their visit was in regard to her work for us.”</p><p>“But you don't know that it wasn't. Seems to me your guess is as good as mine. You come here, telling me that not only does the enemy recognize our associates, but has also forgone their boundaries--if they ever had any to speak of--and then ask me to throw my people to the lions without batting an eyelash?”</p><p>“No one is throwing anybody anywhere, you're overreacting.”</p><p>“I am only being cautious!”</p><p>“Olivia, please--!”</p><p>By now the voices of the two women were dangerously raised and without a doubt could be heard outside the door. In addition to the ruckus their people made, the dæmons joined in; the hound barking in distress and the cat baring his teeth in an unpleasant hiss.</p><p>Alerted, Kat stepped into the exchange: “Ladies, please! Wait-- Just wait, Olivia. Mrs Godwin, what if… Let's compromise. What if I didn't approach him directly, but instead gathered information from our waiting staff. Their ears are as thin as mine--”</p><p>“Now we are beginning to speak sense--” Faust started.</p><p>“<em>But</em>, if an opportunity presents itself to speak with him without arousing suspicion, I <em> will </em> seize it,” Kat finished. A slight frown was scrunching her brow. She fixed the matron with an annoyed gaze, about done with being spoken over.</p><p>Godwin took her cat into her arms, slowly and lovingly like a babe, seeking the safeguard of a familiar being. She was silent, patiently waiting for others to speak first.</p><p>Faust turned away from her companions with a feral growl rising inside her throat. She returned to her position at the makeshift bar. There was clanging of glass against glass as she fumbled with a carafe full of jade-coloured liquid and a tumbler. Savva stood in front of her, the lean and strong bulk of his body instinctively shielding her from harm, although there wasn't any.</p><p>“I guess I have no say in this matter anyway,” she said after a while, encouraged by the drink.</p><p>“That is not true, dear,” Godwin said.</p><p>“It is--Glenys... it is. It doesn't matter now. But I warn you both: if anything befalls this establishment or the people in my employment due to your actions, it will not be without consequences.”</p><p>As she said this, Faust swiveled back on her heel, to face them. Whatever emotion reflected in her features before was now gone, replaced by her usual expression of sobriety. It meant that the matter was settled and she wished not to speak about it any longer. She exchanged a long stare with Godwin, reclaiming her dominance over the situation. Kat couldn't help it but to feel embarrassed for both of them.</p><p>Godwin humbly lowered her head and said, “Very well. I appreciate it. Truly.”</p><p>Still cradling her dæmon in an embrace, the Director stood up and set out to take her leave, only then she stopped and turned slightly. “Though, before I go, there's one more thing, Ms Miller.”</p><p>Awaiting some sort of advice regarding her assignment, Kat gave her a little smile and with a nod beckoned her to go on.</p><p>“The Detective Sergeant. It has been brought to my attention that you see quite the lot of him. Have you two become… close?”</p><p>Kat felt a lurch beneath her heart as it started to beat faster. Atticus let out a crow, similarly startled by the sudden turn of discussion. The crest of ivory and brown feathers on his head was raised. <em> It had been brought to her attention? </em>--the jay-bird thought to his person.</p><p>Kat flashed Faust an angry glance. She immediately looked away to hide the shameful flinch that appeared on her face, lips shaking and twisting. To hide the grimace some more, Faust took a swig from the glass she still clutched.</p><p>“No, we haven't become <em> close</em>, for God's sake. He sought me out in relation to his work four or five times and joined me for a drink once or twice. That's it. If anything, and with all due respect, what I do in my private time is none of your concern,” Kat said defiantly. Despite her opinion ringing loud and clear, she resembled a child caught playing with a forbidden thing--curled into herself, flushing, and sullen.</p><p>“Indeed. But due to the current state of affairs and the fact he is in employment of His Majesty's Constabulary, which as we know is adopting strange tendencies as of late, I am afraid it is my concern. So, if I may… Is that really all that's to it?” Godwin inquired calmly.</p><p>“He's a friend,” Kat mumbled. Somewhere in the middle, her words faltered as if she herself wasn't sure about the arrangement, but then, of course, what else could she call him?</p><p>“A friend, hm? Not a contact, then. Or an ally?” Godwin questioned, making the barmaid regret her choice of words, for which she deserved a hurtful jab on the cheek by her dæmon. “Well, I guess I should not blame you, I heard a lot of praise for him. An interesting fellow. But do tread lightly, we must choose whom to trust in these trying times.”</p><p>“Are you suggesting anything?”</p><p>“You tell me that, Miss.”</p><p>Kat took in a sharp breath and instinctively glanced over to Faust again, not sure if in search of sympathy or in anger, but the matron ignored her on purpose, pouring herself another drink. So instead, Kat looked Godwin in the eye. She tried not to show her confusion: a sickening combination of a feeling she should not be apologizing for how she did her job and lived her life, and shame. Jutting her chin, she said, “I've never disclosed any information acquired on behalf of Oakley Street to him.”</p><p>“Neither have you disclosed every information you have learned from <em> him </em> to <em> us</em>, as per our original agreement,” Godwin returned in a snap.</p><p>“That's 'cause trust goes both ways, Mrs Godwin.”</p><p>The Director didn't continue the argument, instead she picked up another moment to study the young woman. The cat-dæmon called out to her and she placed him upon her shoulder so that he could whisper into her ear. She closed her eyes while listening to what he had to say, though just for a moment as a person would when reminiscing of a tender memory, then gave a nod to whatever she was agreeing to.</p><p>The prolonged silence made Atticus nervous and he flapped his wings with a force that sent Kat's hair flying around her head in a tangled mess. She shared his emotion and wished she, too, could open her arms wide and fly away.</p><p>“So it does,” said Godwin finally. “I just wanted to make sure.”</p><p>Then the silver-haired lady walked around the desk and made her way to the door. When she was to walk past, she stopped and gently touched her sleeve. She stood so close, Kat could hear the soft purring of her dæmon, who was now resting against the neck of his person.</p><p>“Do you have any… means of defense, Miss? A weapon of some kind?” Godwin asked out of nowhere. The words came in a whisper, but even so from the corner of her eye Kat saw Faust's hand shoot up into her hair and rake through it shakily in reaction.</p><p>Kat's mind went to the locked up casket under her bed, in which lay the Praga 1919 pistol, unused for years, but tended to with care and functional. In a silent tone, she replied, “You know I do. What about it?”</p><p>“Do you carry it with you?”</p><p>“No, never. You suggest I should start?” Kat's eyebrows went up.</p><p>Godwin didn't say. For the last time the corners of her mouth curled upward as she patted the barmaid's arm. She asked Faust to request the guards at the door to leave, and within the next five minutes she was gone, through the storeroom and to the backstreet, which she would discover blissfully empty at this time of the night.</p><p>***</p><p>Kat lingered in the office for a beat, but when Olivia took her place behind the desk, shuffling and reorganizing paperwork without a word, she turned to leave as well. The air was still heavy with tension she didn't like anyway, and was too annoyed to be looking at her.</p><p>“Ask her,” Atticus whispered into Kat's ear, being the nosy little devil that he was.</p><p>“No. Leave it, I don't care,” she protested, happy to be chewing on all the bitterness at the tip of her tongue all night and day if need be.</p><p>“What's that?” came Faust's reaction to their whispers, stopping Kat's hand from pulling the handle.</p><p>Kat's heel played staccato against the floor. She tapped it once, twice, three times... </p><p>“What did you tell her?” she blurted, back still turned.</p><p>“I would appreciate it if you looked at me during a conversation,” said the matron harshly.</p><p>Her heat rising, Kat complied. Facing Faust, though not leaving the safe spot at the door, she elaborated on her question, “About Horowitz. What did you tell her?”</p><p>Faust sighed. She bit her lip, but then said, “Nothing… I guess. I was only sharing my concerns that you might not be focusing enough on your work--your <em> other </em> work, that is.”</p><p>Kat's face darkened and she felt anger envelope her heart and mind. “Excuse me?”</p><p>“You spent your time digging information for him more than--”</p><p>“For you?”</p><p>“I meant to say Oakley Street.”</p><p>“You can't be serious.”</p><p>“Oh, but I am…” Faust said and slowly stood up from her chair. She placed her palms upon the desktop and spread her fingers wide, leaned a little forward. She was yards away and still it felt as if she was towering over her.</p><p>While his person battled the feeling of wanting to shrink away under the matron's gaze, the jay-bird opened his wings menacingly and crouched, ready to dart forward anytime and fight.</p><p>Faust continued, not wasting the opportunity to speak her mind now that Godwin wasn't there to oppose her: “You seem to forget time and again that it was me, who recommended you to George when Oakley Street was in a need for 'a street source', as the late Director Nugent flatteringly put it. Until now I didn't regret this as you are efficient and good at what you do, and you've been making me proud. But you're crossing the line, kid. You're more arrogant by the day, and I'm not sure where that might lead you.”</p><p>Her words took Kat somewhat by surprise. Especially, because she wasn't sure what to think of them as they sounded both as a threat and a concern. But because she was so angry with Faust, she chose to believe it was the former. She said, “I'd never in my life betray my beliefs and work for the other side. <em> Never</em>. Unlike you... Actually, y'know what? I don't think it's <em> my </em> loyalty Godwin should be worried about.”</p><p>Savva barked. He stood in front of the desk, protecting the woman like before, only this time his posture was intimidating, as was the grimace on his face.</p><p>“Pardon?”</p><p>“You heard me. On which side are you on, Olivia? I thought I could trust you with my life. Turns out, you spill shit about me behind my back just like about everyone else. What did you tell her, huh? That I sleep with him?”</p><p>“And don't you?”</p><p>“Of course not!”</p><p>“That would make him an exception.”</p><p>Furious, Kat snapped. “You can't help yourself, can you? You need to be in control no matter what the cost.”</p><p>For a moment Faust stood silent and unmoving. A loud snarl filled the room, but Kat couldn't make out where it was coming from--the matron, her dæmon, or perhaps both? Then Faust folded her arms over her chest in a jerk and the barmaid flinched instinctively. Atticus clicked his bill.</p><p>“You want to know on which side I am, Miller?” Faust uttered through her teeth. “I'm on the side of the people to whom I have an obligation, which includes you, you cow. If that is really your only concern, I feel sorry for you. Really, must you be so self-righteous all the time?”</p><p>“I'm principled, there's a difference.”</p><p>“You?” Faust laughed, a genuine laugh, and it made Kat's blood boil. Her shoulders rounded so that her offensive stance now resembled her dæmon's. As if it wasn't enough, Faust continued:</p><p>“You're a thief and a liar, Miller. You're moralistic and judgmental, and a half-decent barmaid. You pretend to know everything about everybody, but in reality you know jackshit, because you never even as much as tried to understand the people around you. You can't see beyond your notes and reports. So let me shed a little light on all this: I may be doing what I do for the influence, but at least I'm not the only one who can benefit from it in the end. You only do it because you need to prove that you're smarter than everybody else.”</p><p>By now Faust had crossed the room and stood face to face with Kat, who was choking down bile and tears. She was so close, she surely had to hear the barmaid's heart being ripped apart by how hard it was beating inside her chest, and by the words that hurt her so.</p><p>Atticus froze with his wings spread wide, his beak was opening and closing in a silent protest. He couldn't make sense of anything: Faust spoke the truth, yet he felt the pain it caused to the woman he loved.</p><p>“Here's a little advice. Stop questioning others devotion to the cause and find a little time for self-reflection. Maybe then people won't end up hating you after they get to know you,” said Faust and this time the spiteful look on her face softened for a moment when she realized how harsh that must have sounded. She walked all the way to the door and with her hand on the handle she said, “You be careful around Hazlett. Because what I said to Glenys, I meant: you fuck this up, you're back on the street, selling secrets for pennies and snitching on your friends, and the rest of us is going with you. You need to decide whether you're doing this for you, or for the people.” </p><p>With her back turned and pulling the door open, Faust added, “Get a grip and in ten minutes I want to see you out and about.”</p><p>She first let Savva out, then followed him, their demeanour delightful and charming again as soon as they stepped over the sill. The door slammed shut and Kat was left inside the office alone. The disoriented bird huddled against her cheek and chin, stroked her with his small head, and preened her hair, but to no avail. He felt the hurt, too.</p><p>In that moment, they were in perfect alignment, feeling the empty space around them embodying their whole world and life--lonely, silent, and confusing. Her shoulders collapsed. She buried her face in her hands and allowed herself to cry, while her dæmon watched with a broken heart.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. A Smiling Indifference to the Faith</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This chapter is a little longer than usual, which is also why it took me so long to finish (I mean, I had the main parts ready with the previous chapter, but the transitions were a pain in the ass to write, so the chapter may be submitted to a bit of further editing). I thought about splitting it into two, but given it covers actions of a similar nature, I decided not to.</p><p>Both the title and the quote in the text ("The faith [...] was a sacrifice of all freedom, all pride, all self-confidence of spirit.") are from Friedrich Nietzsche's <i>Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future</i> (Germany, 1886).</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> London, January 2006 </em>
</p><p>Hours passed since the calamitous encounter, filled with work and misery. Kat left her emotion behind inside Olivia's office, resolute not to show how easily she bruised, though she evaded the matron's scrutinizing gaze all night in fear that through her eyes she would see the turmoil inside.</p><p>Then, with ease the night slipped into another day, dull and disorganized, which Kat could hardly remember because of the drink. She couldn't brave the world without it and the price of falling out with Atticus was a small one in comparison to the suffocating pain of anxiety. To his own surprise, the dæmon was also happy to embrace the silent numbness of mind.</p><p>Only on the midday after the next did they both find the courage to leave the comfort of familiar places with a clear head. Or better, were required to: it was a Monday and they had work to do.</p><p>Atticus' wings cut through the curtain of cold drizzle. He weaved and drifted, and soared high, his eyes set on the horizon composed thickly with mountainous cumulonimbi. The sight in front of him was compelling. Vast, yet at the same time definitely determined by the impeccable flat bottoms and soft-curled tall tops of the clouds. In the distance, two zeppelins could be seen--the daily service from the Midlands--and a flock of starlings murmuring through the seemingly impregnable bodies of white, blue, and grey. The jay-bird fantasized about what it must be like to fly that high; would they ever feel such freedom?</p><p>Underneath, Kat trotted down the Embankment, with the rushing Thames by her side for a companion.</p><p>Although disconnected from her dæmon's thoughts by a splitting headache, she stared distantly at the same scene and shared the same reverie. She wore her head high, but she felt small and frightened under the God's thunderous roof, reminiscing of a day when through the same sight she experienced a thrill of empowerment and vivacity, and wondered where it had gone. She wished to be back to Oxford; back to that late and lazy summer evening all those years ago, when everything was much more straightforward and she was happy, carrying an honest idea of a better future under the same ceiling of grey cloud. Kat remembered that evening well.</p><p>It was the evening she had withdrawn her scholarship at St Sophia's after two years of tiring studies, in a gesture of revolt against the system--an action which in the end earned her a disavowment from her family. That evening there was similar injustice in the world around, which appeared to be impossible to fight; there also was heartache, a sense of abandonment. But back then, to all that there seemed to be a simple solution: to run away.</p><p>With Atticus they had sailed down Isis with the gyptians, to London, to choose a new life for themselves and in hope to discover a freedom of mind and soul... Which in a way they had, or so Kat had thought, when they were recruited by the mysterious Oakley Street to serve the country--foregin, but now theirs--and join the silent fight against the Magisterium. Except lately it has become apparent more than ever, that the independence they thought they had gained through this was but a mere idea of one and that they instead found themselves trapped in the middle of a conflict much bigger than them.</p><p>Kat stopped to lean against the cast-iron railing that parted the walkway from the river. Eyes now set on the Thames, she rolled a cigarillo.</p><p>To run away--it was her first instinct even now.</p><p>Over a haze of smoke rising from her mouth she watched the water course through the city and out of it, and on its surface the boats, butties, cargo- and tugboats, and yearned to be aboard one of them and let herself to be taken to wherever they were headed.</p><p>Atticus must have sensed her indifference for he descended from the skies to sit by her arm. “What are you thinking?” he asked.</p><p>“Don't know,” she murmured, somewhat ashamed of her cowardly ideas, and pulled on the cig.</p><p>“Yes, you know.”</p><p>“And you know it, too,” she barked at the dæmon. It was so easy to provoke her nowadays. “I'm thinking about getting out of this godforsaken city and taking a fucking break from all the power machinations, and hypocrisy, and being told what to do with my life.”</p><p>“Stop being such a child.”</p><p>“Excuse me?”</p><p>Kat was cross with the jay-bird. She expected more support from him after what had happened, but he was of the opinion she should stop being so sensitive and either put the conversation with Faust behind her, or gather some courage and give the matron a piece of mind.</p><p>“Dospey uzh,” he said. <em> Grow up already. </em></p><p>In irritation, Kat slapped at him, pushing him off the rail. With a startled scream Atticus beat his wings to prevent himself from falling. Instead of a solid surface, his claws and bill found the bare hand of his person. </p><p>They both yelped loudly at the pain.</p><p>Kat dropped the smoke, and kicked the iron fence, and cussed. “What the <em> fuck </em> is wrong with you?!”</p><p>Atticus landed back at where he sat before. “Me? What is wrong with <em> you </em>?!” he screeched.</p><p>To continue he lowered his tone a little--their disagreement agitated the passers by. “You got told off, so fucking what? This isn't the end of the world! And it isn't like there wasn't a truth to what Olivia told you!”</p><p>Sullen, she turned her back, rubbing at her wrist where the dæmon left a throbbing, red and blue mark. “I just never thought she would turn against us like that.”</p><p>“What are you talking 'bout? Olivia's not our enemy. She didn't turn against us, she's trying to protect us. And even if she didn't, d'you forget who we work for? We've known who she was when we started and since we'd seen her do all sorts of awful stuff, but now you suddenly got a problem with morals? Why, because she's gotten too personal?”</p><p>“Yes!”</p><p>“This is not about us!”</p><p>“I know!” Kat yelled, the break of voice at the end of the sentence getting lost among the sounds of the city. “I know. I know what we signed up for. I just… I feel like everything is against us lately, and I'm just… so tired.” Her whole body slumped, overcome by melancholy.</p><p>Atticus took a pity and drifted to her arms, which she had folded tightly over her chest. He rested his head against her chin. For a while they remained so; pressing against each other for support, and in silence.</p><p>Eventually, Kat said, “Look around you, Atticus… they're everywhere… they got their own ministry, seats in the parliament, people everywhere; they have money, they have influence… Folk all over the world are starting to believe they even hold the ultimate Truth. And we're playing at spies out of a bloody liquor joint. What's the point of us?”</p><p>The jay-bird shuddered.</p><p>This was so unlike her and at once it made him remember an idea they had come across recently, though where and by whom he wouldn't remember, which resonated very much with them: that the Faith in the Authority was a sacrifice of all freedom, all pride, all self-confidence of spirit. How frightening was it to think that they didn't even need to share that Faith for their spirit to suffer from the corrosive teachings of the Church.</p><p>To repel the awful feeling in both of them, he said, “That should motivate us all the more to continue. We've a chance to make a difference--you said so yourself, that the opportunity we have is one of a kind. Where's your reason?”</p><p>“Gone with my courage,” Kat quipped. </p><p>“We can make a difference,” Atticus repeated with more tenacity and pressed his head closer to her face. “But we need to focus on the task at hand. Once we've organized our thoughts we'll feel much better and see things clearer.”</p><p>“I don't know, Atticus.”</p><p>“There had to come a point in our life when we must break free from our fears. I think this is it.” The dæmon leapt to her shoulder where a clump of matted hair and a soft woollen scarf ensnared his small body. </p><p>Leaning against the railing again, her small back pushed against the cold piece of metal, Kat rolled another cig.</p><p>She wrapped the smokeleaf carefully and closed the paper. Then she ran one end of the smoke across her lower lip to moisten it, gently placed it into her mouth, and lit it with a battered gas-lighter.</p><p>She took a deep breath.</p><p>Her insides burned, unclear if by the cause of the smoke or the worry.</p><p>The vapor came out only when she finally spoke, and it dissipated among the raindrops. The rain had grown heavier while they argued, the air a little colder. “Sometimes I wish I were as hopeful as you are.”</p><p>“But you are. Remember that I am a part of you, always."</p><p>The woman couldn't help it but smile. She knew they would be embittered by each other's disagreeable sentiments for a little longer, but at the end of the day they had one another, and that was enough. Always.</p><p>“Let's go then,” Kat sighed and put the cigarillo between her lips so that she could warm her hands inside the pockets of her jacket.</p><p>Atticus took wing. He flew low, but yards ahead, trying to pull her forward. And she let herself. Further by the river, left to the Strand, and in the direction of Leicester Square.</p><p>They were on their way to ask a friend for a favor.</p><p>***</p><p>The Westminster Reference Library was much more busy than what she anticipated it to be at lunchtime, but clearly the homely atmosphere of the freshly waxed tiled floors, and wooden shelves, and balustered staircases attracted people no matter what the hour. Even despite the cold sunshine coming in through the tall rectangular windows, the main study hall was coated in a golden light. The reading desks were packed. Thankfully, most were occupied by students who kept to themselves and so Kat and Atticus needed not to be worried about an unwanted audience.</p><p>They walked together through the better part of the reading hall and continued to the far back, where there stood a counter--an information desk of a kind, assigned to the librarians. Behind it, striking as always, Pol Gallagher tended to the book of entries. Drem sat on a coat hanger beside as if on a roost, almost invisible among the pieces of clothing and hats.</p><p>Ears accustomed to the sound of approaching steps, the young librarian didn't take her eyes off her writing at all as she asked, “How can I help you today?”</p><p>“Depends on what kind of assistance you provide, miss,” Kat mused. She folded her arms on the counter and shoved herself into her friend's sight, a wide smile on her face, carelessly dripping rainwater across the pages. Black smudges appeared here and there in the book instead of the neatly written letters.</p><p>Pol looked up from under her brow with a slight irritation. “Have you ever considered buying an umbrella?”</p><p>“Not really. I love rain.”</p><p>“'Course you do. But you won't be loving consumption, I can promise you that.”</p><p>Kat laughed. She pulled herself up to her toes to plant a light kiss on Pol's cheek. “You're a darling. How are you?”</p><p>Disturbed as always by her unpredictable moves, Atticus flapped over to the owl-dæmon. They chattered at one another, then huddled close for warmth, which the jay was in a dire need of.</p><p>Pol pushed Kat away with her free hand and out of the corner of her eye inspected Mrs Johnson, the somewhat sensitive senior librarian. Sensitive to inappropriate manners and personal dealings during working hours, that was. Her back was turned though. They were safe. “What do you want?” she asked with a certain bluntness.</p><p>Kat didn't waste her breath on further niceties, they never called upon each other under a pretense: in the world dependent on achievement, they used each other openly and unapologetically. “You reckon you'd have time to look up a name for me? I'm interested in the press directory.”</p><p>“I suppose.” Pol shrugged and reached for a notepad. “What name would that be?”</p><p>“Hazlett. H-a-z-l-e-double t, Lawrence.”</p><p>Pol paused as she wrote the name down. She raised her head for a beat to exchange a look with her dæmon, then asked, “As in the Commissioner of the High Council Lawrence Hazlett?”</p><p>This excited Kat. “You heard of him?”</p><p>“Read about him.”</p><p>“What? Where?”</p><p>“Friday's Gazette,” Pol said, her brows twisting in a small expression of disbelief. “You haven't seen?”</p><p>“Hadn't really had the time to catch up with the official news,” Kat admitted.</p><p>“Your work is becoming sloppy,” Pol scolded. She walked up to a periodicals stand mounted up on the wall, where they kept newspapers and magazines, some months old, for reference. She rummaged through issues of the London Gazette for a brief moment. When she found the desired bundle of paper, she pulled it out and slapped it in front of Kat. With a finger she pointed to an article on the front page. “There you go.”</p><p>The announcement read:</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <b>Further Changes to the Organizational Structure of the Holy Church in Brytain</b>
  </p>
  <p>Not a day after his visit to the King of Brytain, His Holiness President Delamere of the High Council announces Lord Lawrence Hazlett as the Commissioner to the new ruling body of Holy Church. Lord Hazlett, previously known in Anglia as a prime member of the now defunct League of St Alexander, had arrived from Geneva, where he held a position as the Envoy for International Affairs with the League for the Instauration of the Holy Purpose. The status of Commissioner is newly reinstalled, and is rumored to hold competences coincidental to His Eminence Secretary of Theology, although the Holy Church is yet to announce any potential changes to the current dispensation of power within the ministry.</p>
</blockquote><p>“Holy shi--” Kat started, but a sharp <em> shhh </em> silenced her.</p><p>Pol held a finger to her lips. Leaning in and in a whisper she asked, “Now, what on <em> earth </em> would you want with him?”</p><p>“The question is: what he'd want with us? He came to the <em> Row </em> last Thursday and basically hasn't left since.”</p><p>“What the hell?” Pol cussed loudly in a burst of bewilderment, ignoring her own advice to keep silent. “Why?”</p><p>“That's what I'm trying to figure out, obviously.”</p><p>“That's crazy.”</p><p>“Yes. Well, now at least I've an answer to how much trouble we're in,” Kat whimpered, folded the Gazette, and handed it back to Pauline.</p><p>From afar, there came a cough--the kind of a polite but insistent sound of someone trying to make himself to be noticed. An older gentleman stood behind Kat and carried a bunch of book request forms, which he was impatient to hand in.</p><p>“I'll be right with you, sir,” Pol said with a smile. Kat she addressed in barely a whisper, “Alright. I'll see what I can do. I'll bring it, say… tomorrow?”</p><p>“Yes. Come to the club in the evening, but have me called out to the stage door. And will you--?”</p><p>“I'll keep it off the record, don't worry.”</p><p>“Thank you,” Kat said in earnest and retreated from the counter just as the gentleman behind was about to let out an unhappy sigh.</p><p>She called to Atticus, outstretching an arm for him to land on.</p><p>They came to a halt at the entrance. Kat placed the dæmon on her shoulder, to pull her jacket closer--the cold draft surprised her as the library had been pleasantly warm.</p><p>“Well, those were surprisingly productive five minutes, don't you think?” she thought out loud. “Where to next?”</p><p>“The article said he arrived from Geneva,” Atticus remarked. He remembered the two zeppelins he noticed during their walk and it gave him an idea.</p><p>The same occurred to Kat. “The passenger lists.”</p><p>The passenger lists were exactly what they were named for: lists of passengers travelling to and from the country by the means of public transportation--by zeppelin, train, or ship. They were a relic from the past, but keeping track of people's whereabouts proved to be practical for a number of reasons and to a number of authorities, and so the travel companies proceeded to administer them and the passengers to tolerate them. These lists were a perfect starting point for them until Pol found anything of interest. Copies of these were held and accessible in a number of places, but of all at the Public Records Office here in London.</p><p>Located on Chancery Lane, the Office was but a thirty-minute walk away, a little further up the Strand. Its building was not prominent at all among other architecture in this part of the city, that happened to be all made up in the same grey stone, and stained glass, and similar structure. Only when one walked up to it, the distinction of the gothic revival style in which the archive had been built would become apparent.</p><p>Arriving at the gate, Kat waited for Atticus to settle himself back on her shoulder after a brief flight which the walk had allowed, and so had an opportunity to take in the modest majesty of the building: the pleasing repetition of elements and pattern inspired by the Perpendicular of old, all springing up high above her head. She walked underneath the pointed arch of the driveway, and into the narrow patch of a yard guarded by two sycamore-trees, and through the main entrance.</p><p>Kat would visit the Public Records Office often. The ease with which one could acquire basic information about another was too good to be ignored.</p><p>But it wasn't without exposure.</p><p>Her face was known around these parts, although the clerks only knew her under a false name, and held her for a researcher to a second-rate county newspaper--most of the time her enquiries were general enough to not be noticed as suspicious in that regard. Were somebody to recognize her anyway, she had other means of acquiring the information she needed.</p><p>She left her winter clothes at the dressing room, and with Atticus on arm and a worn black journal in hand, which she usually carried inside the inner pocket of her jacket, she approached the front desk to request this year's passengers lists of the in-bound transnational zeppelin, train, and ship lines. She was composed, almost tranquil in comparison to her temper earlier that day, and waited patiently to be handed a pile of colour-coded binders.</p><p>With these she made her way to the round reading room.</p><p>Unlike the one at the Reference Library, the main study of the PRO was almost empty that day--less than half a dozen researchers sat at the polished tables. One of these, a round and sturdy thing, was placed in the middle under a glass cupola, while the others circled the domed space in two crescents. Surrounding the reading room were shelves, ascending two floors up and filled to the ridge with boxes and boxes of records: from birth, death, and marriage certificates, and censuses, to military service records, and famous wills. Anything could be discovered here.</p><p>Kat found an empty chair at one of the curved tables, with her back turned to the supervising clerk. In front of her she spread the binders--some of them musty and frayed at the edges, as these records would pass through hundreds, if not thousands of hands throughout a single week.</p><p>“Where do we start, you reckon?” she asked her dæmon.</p><p>Atticus drifted down to the desk and inspected the covers. “Try the zeppelins, first. He doesn't strike me as a man who would opt for a tiresome train ride to take in the views.” The jay then hopped to the edge and snuggled close to her chest.</p><p>With a soft sigh, she reached for the first record; they were in for a long afternoon.</p><p>***</p><p>Kat studied the seemingly endless lists of names, elbow propped on the desktop, holding her heavy head in her hand.</p><p>It was almost confusing as to how many transnational zeppelins have landed at the two main Londonian aëroports each day. A service from Berlin two times a day, a zeppelin from Prague, Vienna, Paris, Lindanäs, Oslo. Even two lines per week from Pest, or as far as St Petersburg.</p><p>And precisely one service a day from Geneva, each carrying as many as sixty passengers and twenty crewmembers.</p><p>They knew the Commissioner had had to arrive this month as there was no talk or appearance of him any time sooner, but on what day they hadn't found and so had to laboriously go through every name on every list, of every day of January. Men, women, children, clergy, scholars, students, craftsmen, businessmen, even an entire convent of nuns.</p><p>The light from the roof dome changed with the passing clouds, then rapidly with the setting sun; transformed from white to golden, to scarlet, to the early winter dark, until Kat was forced to turn on one of the anbaric lamps that stood ready beside every reading spot. She's been skimming through about the ninth list of names and her mind started to drift away in worry, when in the manifest of in-bound and returning Brytish passengers from the first week of the month she found the name she was looking for.</p><p>“There he is!” she said victoriously.</p><p>Atticus leapt to her shoulder. Digging his claws deep into her skin for support, he leaned in to see. “He's a Brytish citizen, then?”</p><p>“Must be,” she assured.</p><p>“Let's see.”</p><p>“Arrived at the London Aëroport South on January the third by <em> Horatio</em>, Aerobus Transnational Zeppelin Line. Port of embarkation: Geneva Central. That adds up to the article,” Kat whispered to the dæmon. “Contract ticket number--not important... Hazlett, Lawrence J., Mr. Traveled by first class--'course he did… Now, this is interesting... proposed address in the United Kingdom: confidential. That's unusual.”</p><p>She traced the rows beneath with her fingertip, feeling the subtle dents which the typewriter left in the soft paper. All the other passengers had their addresses listed, some as detailed as the house or flat number. All but Hazlett.</p><p>Returning to the initial row, her finger traveled the remaining columns by the Commissioner's name to where his age was listed. If what the record said was true, Hazlett was forty eight years old. She immediately scribbled the number 1958 with a question mark into her journal. A little further still, under 'Profession, Occupation or Calling of Passengers' the record said 'Diplomat', just like the article in the Gazette suggested.</p><p>That is where the information ended.</p><p>She leaned back against the creaking chair. Somehow she hoped for more, even knowing exactly what these documents would provide.</p><p>“It's a start,” Atticus said. “We'll see what Pol can find.”</p><p>“M-m,” Kat responded.</p><p>With a yawn she stretched her back and her arms, and checked her wristwatch. They were sitting in the study for hardly two hours.</p><p>“Want to look at anything else?” she asked, knowing they still had a little time before she ought to arrive at the club. Beside that, Kat still felt the childish urge to spite Olivia in any way she could, even if it meant coming late to work so that the matron would have to dirty her hands behind the bar.</p><p>“Why not.”</p><p>“Do we try and check out the census?”</p><p>“I'd start with the birth and baptism registers,” Atticus counter-offered.</p><p>“I'd rather be looking at his address. Besides, the birth registers are a tedious piece of work.”</p><p>"And what about the League of St Alexander that the Gazette mentioned? Have we ever heard of it?" </p><p>"Not that I would remember. But it had been picking at my brain also, maybe we could--" </p><p>“What are you up to, stranger?” came a voice from behind them and the chain of their thought had been severed. </p><p>Kat turned in the chair.</p><p>A familiar silhouette stood coated in the warm light of the desk lamps.</p><p>“Jim!” she squeaked and a rush of panic twisted her insides. Her hand, still placed on the passenger record, twitched instinctively for the black journal, but luckily Atticus was ahead of her and drifted atop of it to cover the notes with his body before Horowitz came to stand by their side.</p><p>A wide smirk split his face and his eyes had an inquisitive spark in them, accentuated by a slight frown that deepened the creases in his brow. His overall expression was sardonic, as if there was something entertaining about seeing her in this place and setting. His stance was relaxed, with hands in the pockets of his coat.</p><p>“Hello,” he said.</p><p>For a moment longer than she liked to admit, Kat was lost for words. Eventually, instead of a greeting, she said, “You're making a habit out of this and I'm seriously getting concerned.”</p><p>His smile widened. “I'm sorry, I didn't want to startle you.”</p><p>“You didn't," she lied. "What are you doing here?”</p><p>Horowitz gestured toward the empty seat beside her, and after she nodded that indeed, he was permitted to join them, he sat down--posed himself with one elbow casually placed upon the desk and turned to the side so that he could face her, but Kat noticed he did this intentionally to cover them from the view of the supervisor.</p><p>Stella, who until now circled under the hall's vaulted glass ceiling, landed next to him. Her owl eyes first studied Atticus, then fell on the scribbles in the notebook which were still visible here and there under the bundle of cream feathers on the jay's chest. The other dæmon watched her with anxious curiosity.</p><p>“Actually, I was lookin' for you,” the detective said.</p><p>“Me? What--here?”</p><p>“Well, yes. Somehow you manage to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time, I couldn't get a hold of you for days now.”</p><p>“I was at work for most of the week, as always. You know that.”</p><p>“Let's just agree that <em> Row </em> isn't a place where it's safe to talk about, well, anythin' right now,” he said. His tone changed somewhat, as did his features.</p><p>Kat tilted her head to the side in a slight surprise. “You heard?”</p><p>"Who hasn't?"</p><p>She gave him but a small shrug. “But how did you know I was here?”</p><p>He hesitated. His eyes came off her face and started to wander.</p><p>“Jim?”</p><p>“You have your eyes on the streets, I have mine,” he said unconvincingly. </p><p>Kat exchanged a glance with Atticus. He was thinking the same: what the detective said wasn't true. About such a thing they would have known for long. "I have <em> mine </em> and you have <em> yours</em>, huh? Egyik kutya, másik eb,” she laughed.</p><p>Horowitz furrowed his eyebrows.</p><p>“<em>One is a dog, the other a hound</em>,” she explained. “Aren't they by chance the same eyes, Jim?" </p><p>"I don't know what you mean."</p><p>"You don't know."</p><p>"No."</p><p>"Was it Charlie?" she asked out of the blue--speaking of course of Charlie Townsend, a gyptian boy of about twelve, bright and attentive, but of dubious interests. He was also one of Kat's spotter boys, the one who would deliver her messages if a sender was pressed for time. And the only one who knew where she was precisely every moment of the day. Her Little Tail, she called him.</p><p>"Come now, you must leave it to the boy, he's really good at what he does."</p><p>“No. that is the exact opposite of what he should be doing. That little shit is gonna get his mouth washed with lye.”</p><p>“I might've threatened him with a night in the cell, so you shouldn't be too hard on him,” Horowitz reciprocated. He now examined the covers of the records spread in front of them, Kat could see. “What's all this?” he asked. </p><p>“A genealogy research for a friend,” she made up at once. The tone of her voice was light and her features relaxed in a way that would fool anyone who didn't know better.</p><p>But Horowitz was having none of it.</p><p>“A genealogy research? And you're looking for your friends' ancestry in a passenger list from--” he leaned in, extended his hand, and in a curated gesture placed his finger on the top of the list she studied moments before, “--this month?”</p><p>The stale scent of cigarillos, and aftershave, and a damp woolen coat implied his closeness. The desk lamp illuminated one side of his weary face while the other fell into a deep shade and the pale pools of his irises flitted across the page of the record as he inspected it. There was a contradiction in both his features and his presence, between excitement and repose. A notion, she should find his company intimidating in this circumstance but didn't. Instead, at the sight of him, she felt grounded again.</p><p>A distraught thought came from Atticus, or better a feeling, a tug at her mind. At first, she thought he had become momentarily aggravated again, because she let herself be distracted. Then she realised it was something different. She flinched.</p><p>Before the detective's eye could find the Commissioner's name among the others on the list, Kat closed the binder--mindfully and with caution as not to make the wrong impression. “What was it you wanted?”</p><p>Horowitz laughed heartily at the whole scene, a boyish chuckle which allowed his face to relax. As she finished her question though, and he was reminded of the true intention of his visitation, the joyous sound died inside his throat. His appearance darkened and a series of twitches of the eyelid betrayed how uncomfortable he had become. Stella closed her own eyes to calm the spasms, to help him concentrate.</p><p>He said, “I'm most likely missing a shot here, but I don't know where else to turn, so… People have disappeared. In the docks, and down south. It's happenin' all 'round Thames Valley, actually, and the last cases were from as far as Liverpool and Edinburgh. I wondered if you might know anythin'?”</p><p>Kat's eyes widened. She looked over to Atticus to confer. The dæmon's wings were spread wider still over the journal and he crouched, as if protecting a nest--if he ever had such instinct.</p><p>“I take that as a yes,” Horowitz concluded.</p><p>She rubbed her face. The only information on the matter she had from Godwin, naturally. <em> Shit</em>, she thought. “Is this an official enquiry?” she asked instead.</p><p>He swallowed air and looked away. By God, he was a bad liar.</p><p>“It isn't, is it? Why?"</p><p>He hesitated. "I personally had five missin' persons reported by five very distressed relatives, but the Chief Inspector won't let us conduct investigation."</p><p>"Why won't he?" </p><p>"They're… let's call them undesirable. Some activists and journalists among 'em. He said that pursuing the cases would be futile; said they're all on the run from law or from home, which is utter nonsense, 'course. Not only would he be the first after them if they were, but there's also a lot of children, who sure as hell ain't on the run from anythin'. I didn't think it was right."</p><p>"So you conducted your own investigation? God, Jim, you're gonna get yourself in trouble,” Kat said and tried to find his eyes again. To this, Stella responded with a silent coo.</p><p>Frowning, Horowitz picked up on the eye contact. “Now why would you say that?”</p><p>“Say what?”</p><p>“That I'd get in trouble. Do you know who's behind this?”</p><p>What felt like a million possibilities of how to answer the question flooded her mind.</p><p>If she told him what she knew about Jordan, she might've put many people into the spotlight and eventually in danger, including Horowitz himself: if the CCD found out he was pursuing yet another of their interests--whatever kind of a sick horror that might be at the moment--they sure wouldn't let it slide without proper punishment this time.</p><p>Atticus also had the same thing on mind, but more than for Horowitz, his concern was, as always, for their own safety and about how they would look in front of Godwin after what she had said. <em>Do not speak to him!</em> he insisted, a shrill voice in the back of Kat's head.</p><p>“I really don't know anything that might help you,” she lied. </p><p>“Miller....”</p><p>“Truly.”</p><p>“Miller, kids were taken.”</p><p>“I'm sorry,” Kat retorted in a raised voice. They had drawn a few looks from the readers around and she was panicking.</p><p>Stella hooted. Horowitz was not satisfied. The fact that she didn't budge at such information seemed to anger him, even. He turned in his seat to be able to prop his elbows on the desktop and burrow his face into his palms. He was hiding his tics, and bad ones, too. His cheek convulsed, and his smile line tensed as the corner of his mouth twisted downward, and his jaw clenched.</p><p>The Little owl flew to her person; as did Atticus, for this has well unnerved him.</p><p>Kat folded the journal with her notes, which now lay on the table unattended, and shoved it to the side along with the records. She placed a hand on the detective's shoulder. At first it looked as if he might shy away under the gesture, but he held himself in place, even though through the heavy fabric of his coat she felt the involuntary flex of muscle. </p><p>“Why come to me instead of your authorities?” she asked him silently.</p><p>Through his hands came a stifled scoff, but no answer.</p><p>“Come now. The Chief Inspector isn't the only man in the police force, I bet there's someone who could help.”</p><p>This prompted no reaction at all.</p><p>He calmed down after a moment or two. She withdrew her hand as he turned back.</p><p>“Don't insult your own intelligence,” Horowitz said and made an indication he would be taking his leave.</p><p>“I'm sorry,” Kat said again.</p><p>Horowitz stood up and carefully pushed the now empty chair back at the desk. “No, <em> I'm </em> sorry. For this. I've overreacted. You have nothing to do with it,” he said and sighed. “I mean, I already owe you a great deal anyway.”</p><p>“You don't owe me anything,” mumbled Kat, looking up to him.</p><p>“But I do. So, maybe if you needed to… I don't know... review your findings, I'm a great genealogy fan as you might well know.” Like that, he was the usual composed, amiable self. Behind the small smirk that appeared on his face, there was a heartbreaking sadness.</p><p>She gave him a nod and a giggle, so approving of his sense of humour, which is what encouraged him to specify:</p><p>“A drink? Say, t'morrow night?”</p><p>A breath got stuck inside Kat's chest. “Uh…”</p><p>The damage done to her ego by the embarrassment she felt over Godwin's scolding and Olivia's judgement was still fresh, the gashes were still bleeding, and right at this moment her pride was placed far above the excitement she felt for this man. “I would really like to--” she started and meant it.</p><p>“Great. <em> Florence</em>, at nine?”</p><p>“--but I can't,” she finished over his proposition. “I got to work 'till late morning.”</p><p>Horowitz dropped his head and his gaze, mouth composed into a disappointed pout. Kat watched his lips move around words that wouldn't come. Under his breath he said, “You can just say no, you know?”</p><p>“Jim, no,” Stella could be heard to say softly, in a warning.</p><p>His eyes were planted to the floor.</p><p>Kat was unsure whether he spoke of the appointment or himself. Nevertheless, to both of those things she had the same answer: “But I don't want to.”</p><p>Horowitz looked up. “Some other time, then,” he managed to say.</p><p>“Some other time,” she agreed.</p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0009"><h2>9. God's Intention</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>It took me <i>far</i> too long, but the chapter is massive (as opposed to my previous updates) and I found it quite hard to built so that it would encompass everything I needed to say. There is a lot happening, and might seem marginal, but *SPOILER ALERT* it isn't! *gasps*. I've read it far too many times, so if you per chance stumble upon a typo or a sentence than doesn't make sense, because it was moved from elsewhere, please do let me know. I will have an editing sesh over this chapter soon, but need to stand aside for a day or two.</p><p>In the first part there are references to and spoilers for <i>TBoD: The Secret Commonwealth</i>.</p><p>The Google Doc of this fanfic is already 102 pages long, what a ride! Thanks so much for your hits and feedback, it is what propels this project further.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
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  <em> London, January 2006 </em>
</p><p>At the very same time when Kat walked the cold streets of London, Terrence stood above the Lord Commissioner Lawrence Hazlett's desk inside what was until recently the Minister's office at the Ministry of Theology, and thus reported to him:</p><p>“--and as for the assembly in Pisidia, our foreign correspondent is to inform us with certain regret that its results are unfortunate, with a casualty inflicted to the Brotherhood and a pushback from the local farmers.”</p><p>It was a cold room, minimally furnished, and uncomfortable. As was Terrence.</p><p>Although as Private Secretary he did serve all kinds of men before, Hazlett had to be the most vicious one, and it was only Terrence's own inexhaustible ambition that made him get out of bed every morning to see what else the High Council had in store for humanity.</p><p>“Oh? What had happened?” Hazlett asked, but only so interested in the matter--he never stopped arranging his paperwork for the day. His marten-dæmon lounged lazily around his neck, like an obscure fur collar.</p><p>“A disturbance. It is presumed one of the hostages took advantage of their captors and made an escape, murdering the group leader on spot. Though the locals are convinced it was divine justice that killed him. The President is however confident this minor incident will not endanger the entire operation,” Terrence explained, eyes gliding over a typewritten letter that arrived from Geneva the evening before. Here and there, his dæmon came into the view, an enormous Goliath beetle, who droned relentlessly around his head.</p><p>“I do hope Marcel knows what he's doing. I advised against engaging those barbarians, but alas,” Hazlett said and at last put his pen down. He sat up in the chair and interlaced his fingers over his breast in an important-looking gesture. “It is up to him, after all. Very well! And as for our <em> own </em> problem?”</p><p>“Right, of course,” Terrence said. He hurried to sit down on a wooden stool at the other side of the desk. The piece of furniture pressed hard against his sit bones, which is precisely what it was designed to do, to not let people relax far too much. He shuffled the files he carried under his arm and spread one out in front of them. He went on:</p><p>“I got here the latest report from the people you have assigned to deal with the matter for us, which suggests that the larceny at the Office of Inquisition may have been carried out on Faust's request, as we had hoped. The DS who was responsible for investigating the deed seemed to have had a solid lead on a pair of cons, with whom she had previous dealings. Although further inquiries have not landed any results.”</p><p>Hazlett's fingers now tapped rhythmically at the edge of the desktop. “Ah, nevermind <em> his </em> results. The poor lad didn't have half of the resources, luckily for us. I will make sure that these leads secure us a warrant to search both the heretical hellhole of a club and her house. Anything else?”</p><p>For a beat, Terrence dwindled in his thought, considering the importance of certain facts. His dæmon encouraged him to go with it.</p><p>“As for a fact, I think yes. The inquiries he made in regard to the suspects were with the barmaid at the <em> Row</em>, one…” Terrence shuffled the documents to pull from the pile a stack of clipped papers with a photogram on the front page, “Katalin Miller, is her name I believe. She had been there the first night of our visit, the one with the jay-bird?”</p><p>This caught Hazlett's attention, all right. The marten raised her head; the man scrunched his brow and the thin, wide line of his mouth protruded into a pout as he seemed to be biting the inside of his cheek. He leaned in a little to reach for the file to read. “And why would he do such thing?”</p><p>“The connection was not only between the suspects and Mrs Faust, but also to the barmaid who apparently is a frequent guest to, say...  politically disputed societies.”</p><p>“Politically disputed? That is very diplomatically put, Terrence. According to this, she's a heathen and a blasphemer,” Hazlett concluded with a frown, combing through the report.</p><p>“Much so, sir.”</p><p>“Then why would the DS make an inquiry with such an individual without pressing any charges against her?”</p><p>Terrence made an attempt to extend his arm and flip the pages of the file which was now in the Lord Commissioner's possession, but a rough glance of the marten's dark, beady eyes put him in place at once. So, he cleared his throat and summed up: “The file further describes her as an informant, sir.”</p><p>“Informant? As in an official informant to the London Metropolitan--to the State police?”</p><p>“I believe so, sir.”</p><p>Hazlett fell into silence, searching through the papers. The secretary braced himself for a tantrum. But instead, after two pages or so the Commissioner made an excited exclamation. “Now, this is a curious and profound piece of information, Terrence!”</p><p>Terrence let out wind from his lungs. The buzzing sound of his dæmon's wings intensified. “It is, sir?”</p><p>“Oh, by all means. Faust is a gangster, no? And she has in her employ a woman working with the police? No. No, my friend, these types aren't careless. This must be something else.” Hazlett paused, rubbing the line of his jaw between his thumb and index finger, deep in thought. “We must confer again with the lists of Oakley Street associates we had been given by Newman.”</p><p>Terrence raised his chin. “I have already taken the initiative, sir, as it has proven to be fruitful in the past, but I'm afraid neither the name of Miller, nor Faust appear on those lists, though there are great numbers of cover names which we are yet to identify.”</p><p>Hazlett studied the various documents for another moment without as much as acknowledging Terrence's presumptuous efforts, before he piled them up messily and threw them back at the secretary. “Well, she might not be a spy, but she is a threat to the nation's security nevertheless. It is important to have a word with this… Miller woman. Can we make this happen, you think? I mean legally.”</p><p>Terrence couldn't help it but swallow a mouthful of dry air. </p><p>“I suppose, sir. It is said in the report she already had been held for minor misdemeanor--an arrest in 1997 for inciting public disturbance against police authority and the Holy Church. I will request a dossier, if there's any, from the Thames Valley police and think of a reason to hold her for questioning. Malignant political alignment, perhaps?” he said.</p><p>“Yes, see to it,” Hazlett said in a commanding tone, his eyes again wandering about the room in which there was nothing to see. “In the meanwhile, I suggest we try and have a word with her on our own, what would you say to that?”</p><p>“Sir?”</p><p>“Are you up for a snifter, today, after work? I feel an instinct put inside me by our Good Lord that an opportunity will present itself for a nice little chat with Ms Miller some time soon, that might propel our current intentions.”</p><p>“By-- by all means, sir,” Terrence agreed in utter confusion, for this was a highly unstandard proposition from such a high-ranking representative; as it was a strange thing to hear from his type of man. At the same time, he felt relief.</p><p>If the Lord Commissioner liked to handle his foul affairs himself, well, Terrence better let him.</p><p>***</p><p>Finding the words in the documents swimming and floating before her, incomprehensible, Kat had decided to discontinue her little investigation at the Public Records Office shortly after Horowitz left. She felt drained. Her mind needed rest.</p><p>With Atticus squatted on her shoulder she walked all the way to <em> Murderess Row</em>. The late evening streets of Westminster seemed blissfully abandoned, the surface of the dew that has fallen onto the cobblestones sleek and undisturbed. She maintained her lazy strut from before despite really running late for the club's opening: when they entered the backstage, there already came the general hum of a crowd from behind the curtains, and a piano tune; neat and soft, quite different to the usual repertoire of the house band, though her thoughts were too scattered to wonder what might have prompted such alteration.</p><p>Now, sprawled over a chaise longue inside one of the dressing rooms, Kat made no hurry of changing into her working clothes. Atticus looked over her, perched on an armrest. She was rolling her stockings when Mallory stormed in.</p><p>Startled to find anyone inside, the waitress paused with an open palm over her heart. “You have scared the living Hell out of me! God… Where have you <em> been </em>?” She then proceeded into the room, to rummage through her handbag, her coat pockets, her handbag again, with the insistence of a habitual--and a very desperate--smoker.</p><p>Her fox-dæmon followed, mewling like a babe.</p><p>Kat straightened her arched shoulders and sat back, looking at Mallory with her brows quizzically crumpled. “I had some errands to run, for Olivia. I thought she'd tell you.”</p><p>“She forgot to mention,” Mal snapped at first, anxious to light the slim roll of spiced smokeleaf. With the first draw of breath her body relaxed and so did, it seemed, her mind. Her tone much calmer, she added: “She ain't here, anyway, so who gives a crap--when the cat's away...”</p><p>“She isn't?”</p><p>“Nah, went out on business, said she'll be gone all night.”</p><p>“Oh? Where to?”</p><p>“Lincoln's. Today's delivery was short of three barrels of rum.”</p><p>“But the rum had been paid for in advance, I made sure of that,” Kat said with a sense of concern. She stood up and smoothed her blouse.</p><p>“Exactly.” Mallory pointed with the tip of her cig.</p><p>Kat murmured a word of understanding. She was relieved that she wouldn't have to face the matron with the limited intelligence she managed to collect so far, <em> and </em> her limited nerve. She bent over to pull up her trousers, feeling Mal's eyes on the unabashedly displayed curves of her arse, and asked: “How does it look out there?”</p><p>“All right. Quiet… <em> He's </em> here again.” Mal didn't need to specify.</p><p>“'Course he is,” Kat sighed, buttoning herself up. “What is it, the fifth day already?”</p><p>“Fourth. He avoided us on Sunday in all honesty.”</p><p>“What d'you say about him; is he all right to you?” Kat asked, her interest sincere, although buried under a different intent.</p><p>“Polite. Too polite, perhaps,” Mal replied and put the cigarillo out against a wash basin in the corner of the room. She left the stub stuck to its edge. The barmaid gave her an inquiring frown. “I don't know. Have a weird feeling about him. It's the things he says.”</p><p>Kat felt Atticus's attention prick up.</p><p>“Things? What <em> things</em>?”</p><p>“Oh, it's nothing, just… Every day so far he would ask for the <em> Evening Dispatch</em>, he would read it, and then discuss the current affairs with his henchmen, which would be all right, but the language he uses: our Good Lord this, the All-seeing Authority that. The other day, the paper reported the fire up in Stratford, at the time of the union strike in the motor car parts factory. D'you know what he said to that?”</p><p>Kat shook her head no, though Mallory hadn't been waiting on it. She went on:</p><p>“That it was God's message to the unionists! God's message, imagine that! I was just serving them, almost dropped the wine bottle into his lap. Like, you can't tell if it's for show or if he's an actual fanatic and that makes me really uncomfortable,” Mal said and her shoulder did a small jolt, as if she tried to shrug the feeling off.</p><p>“He does have a strange air around him. I've never seen a gyptian man so quick to make the Sign of the Cross as Dirk Mooren was when the Commissioner arrived for the first time,” Kat agreed and started to walk out of the dressing room.</p><p>Atticus was quick to catch up with her, his claws grabbing at her sleeve. Together they continued through the cross over and left off the stage.</p><p>Mal gave a scoff. She spoke as she followed her, with her dæmon at heel: “Mind, Dirk refused to take his hat off yesterday, 'cause he had it full of herbs to protect him from Evil--but it's not like the Evil would keep him from having his gin.”</p><p>Both women laughed a short-lived laugh. As soon as the curtain had fallen in place behind them, a fidgety waiter approached.</p><p>“Thank God, you're here! They've asked for you,” he said to Kat.</p><p>She stared at him stupidly. “What--who did?”</p><p>He gripped an empty tray with such force that his knuckles turned white. Tilting his head, he pointed across the room. She followed the gesture over and even though she knew whom she would find at the end of it, her heart did a lurch regardless.</p><p>Commissioner Hazlett sat at the same snug at which he always did, his usual company of four short of one man. He smoked, his eyes set on the waiter and therefore, on Kat. She knew something was amiss when she noticed their table was yet empty, save for a newspaper, without doubt the <em> Evening Dispatch </em> like Mallory said, still warm from the print.</p><p>“What? For me?” she asked the waiter.</p><p>“Well, no, not for <em> you</em>,” he corrected himself. “They've asked for the bartender.”</p><p>“But what for?”</p><p>“Something to do with the wine.”</p><p>Kat exhaled. She beckoned Mallory further to the bar and she herself set out to walk away. “They don't need me for that, you know what wine we have on offer.”</p><p>But before she made a step, the waiter grabbed her by the elbow. Threateningly she first eyed his hand on her arm, then his face. The lad let go at once, but said in a resolute tone:</p><p>“They've specifically asked for the bartender. I'm not going back there again.”</p><p>“All right, dammit!” Kat retorted, then inwardly scolded herself somewhat when noticing the waiter's discomfort; shame, even.</p><p>She exchanged a look with Mal, who just shook her head and mouthed a word of support, then was admitted by a guest and stopped paying attention to Kat altogether. The lad disappeared also, without giving her another chance to protest.</p><p>“He's looking, we need to move,” Atticus said, not losing a sight of the Commissioner as he flapped to Kat's shoulder.</p><p>She breathed into her stomach, and straightened her back, and walked.</p><p>“God knows what they said to him to make him so apprehensive. Be calm. Calm and nice,” the dæmon advised in a whisper.</p><p>“Gentlemen, how may I be of assistance?” Kat asked before she even stopped to stand at the table, a saccharine smile growing wide on her face.</p><p>It was as if she walked into a spotlight. All three men turned to her: one with an expression of slight disgust and a discontent pout; other hardly brushing a glance over her before dropping it back down to his hands; the Commissioner with an eerie smile, as though he was awfully pleased with something, which immediately coaxed the bitter feeling of anxious self-consciousness out of her gut.</p><p>“We had just learned that Mrs Faust isn't present at the moment,” said the first nameless man to her right, the arrogant-looking one with a snake for a dæmon<em>. How fitting</em>, Kat thought.</p><p>“Yes, that would be correct.”</p><p>“Then we hoped perhaps she left at least <em> one </em> person in charge of this establishment with the minimal knowledge of the wine selection,” he continued through gritted teeth, to display his displeasure with the previous attempts on service.</p><p>Atticus ruffled his feathers in a momentary outburst of loathing, but it didn't disturb Kat's sweet appearance for a second. “Yessir, I apologize for my colleague's incompetence, he's inexperienced. Would the gentlemen be having red or white t'night?”</p><p>The man composed himself, surprised at the sudden helpfulness. He exchanged a look with his companions. The other gentleman didn't react to him; his eyes glued to his pale hands, while his Goliath beetle dæmon buzzed around him. The Commissioner, though, gave him a nod and subsequently the man said: “Certainly white.”</p><p>“By all means. We have Riesling, Semillon, and Montrachet from 2000 to 2002, or a very satisfying Moschofilero from 2004; a Greek wine, very aromatic albeit a little young,” Kat continued, in an over-affectionate manner.</p><p>The man's mouth twisted. “Anything older than <em> ten </em> years, surely?”</p><p>“I'm afraid not, sir. With Mrs Faust absent, we don't have access to her reserve cellar and our regular offer sells quickly.”</p><p>He scoffed. “And where is Mrs Faust at all that she is not taking care of her paying customers?” he asked, words dripping sarcasm and contempt.</p><p>Kat paused.</p><p><em> That's a strange turn to take</em>, Atticus thought to her.</p><p>“She is out on business, sir,” Kat said. Without her own intention her smile turned into a stiff grimace.</p><p>“Correct me if I'm wrong, but I presumed the club <em> was </em> her business. Her <em> only </em> business,” he went on.</p><p>So did she, being as broad as she managed: “Yessir, she is out to take care of the establishment's smooth operation.”</p><p>“Where to?”</p><p>“A rum distillery, if I am not mistaken, sir.”</p><p>One more follow-up question and this conversation may complicate their life in a way they might not like, Kat feared.</p><p>But luckily, the man waved his hand as to make clear he was not interested in this babble any more. “Well, this turns out to be a regretful situation, then. Because, you see, the beverages you have suggested might satisfy some people, but they will not do for us,” he said.</p><p><em> Some people</em>. Kat bit her tongue. Instantly, the muscles around her jaw tensed. As if it wasn't enough he was CCD, now she would have to put up with this kind of bullshit.</p><p>“I'm <em> very </em> sorry to disappoint, <em> sir</em>,” she said when really she just wanted to call him a cunt, and she said it in a somewhat snarky tone, and noticed an amused smirk to appear on the Commissioner's lips. The marten around his shoulders perked up, seemingly curious about how the barmaid will handle the situation. Kat continued: “But I really can't do anything about the wine card tonight. If our current selection isn't to your satisfaction, may I recommend sherry, or perhaps something stronger? We have a wide assortment of high quality whiskeys.”</p><p>The man straightened his back and jutted his chin. “You may not recommend <em> anything</em>, I was not asking for your opinion. I request you to solve this unfortunate affair or we will be forced to change locale.”</p><p>“With all due <em> respect</em>, sir--” which was none, “--my hands are tied.”</p><p>The man's snake-dæmon, wrapped until now around his wrist, has moved and erected her head. The man himself curled his fingers into a fist and said: “Watch your tone, you dim little--”</p><p>Kat's eyes widened as she braced herself for a nasty verbal assault and Atticus opened his beak to let out a startled shriek.</p><p>At the same time, the other man pulled at his colleague's sleeve and let out a soft: “For God's sake, Ed--”</p><p>But only one voice silenced the entire commotion with immediate effect: the Commissioner's. Over the guffaw he bellowed: “Give the woman a brake, Edward! Not every joint in this city has to be accustomed to suit your snobbish taste in wines, and rightly so. Where is your modesty, my good man, your humility!”</p><p>The marten was now standing curled around his neck, her muzzle pulled back, her teeth bared.</p><p>The man called Edward fell back into the snug's upholstering, humiliated but sulking; the snake disappeared up his sleeve. Silence ensued.</p><p>Then, the Commissioner turned to Kat. “I do apologize for my companion's behaviour, Miss--?”</p><p>“Miller. It's Miller,” she heard herself say hastily, part of her hoping he wouldn't catch it.</p><p>“Ms Miller," he repeated with perfect precision and made the hairs on her neck stand up. "I do apologize for his behaviour. What he meant to say is that we kindly decline your offer, but our simple vow of moderation does not allow us to have anything stronger than wine. We will have the Semillon--I cannot bear the vile Greek stuff. And while you will be fetching it for us, I will make sure Mr Cooper here will conduct himself with decorum appropriate for a man in the service of our Good Lord, the Authority. We thank you, Miss, bless you.”</p><p>Breathing fast, Kat struggled not to glare too openly at the man.</p><p>Atticus didn't as much as consider such subtlety: he started at the marten, and the marten stared back at him with a sort of deranged interest.</p><p>Now she understood what Mallory meant.</p><p>Underneath Hazlett's civilized words there loomed something strange, powerful, and commanding, that enticed total respect and submission.</p><p>But unlike the waitress, she was almost certain who she was facing, didn't even need a research to tell her:</p><p>A religious and moral radical.</p><p>Her worst nightmare.</p><p>***</p><p>The next morning, a banging sound lifted Kat and Atticus from a short and troublesome slumber.</p><p>First, Kat thought it was the rush of blood throbbing inside her ears, but the metal clanging suggested otherwise. With exasperation she forced her eyes open. Her face felt swollen.</p><p>She grabbled around the bed for her wristwatch, upsetting with the tips of her fingers a number of various items lying about the floor of the narrowboat: a crumpled smokeleaf wrapping, a boot, an empty bottle. The watch lay underneath a soiled blouse.</p><p>It showed half past eight in the morning.</p><p>Kat blinked her heavy eyelids open wider to try and bring the dial into focus; an instant sense of suspicion got hold of her. <em> Who could be looking for them so early?  </em></p><p>In only her undergarments she dragged herself out of bed and to the door, wary. Atticus--who didn't show much concern as he yet battled sleep--flapped from surface to surface, to find his place on the kitchen counter.</p><p>“Coming!” Kat yelled, when the knocking got louder and more insistent.</p><p>She lingered in front of the entrance, finding a steady foothold, and only when she did, she opened the door to find Pol standing on the bow deck, hitting the boat's roof with her fist. In a flash, Kat seized her by the wrist to stop her from further damaging her property and home, and from hurting herself, and let out a big breath she was holding in.</p><p>“What the actual fuck are you doing, Pauline?” Kat's voice was coarse, raspy, and despite the angry undertone, she spoke low. She showed little of her surprise at the unforeseen visit.</p><p>“You weren't answering when I knocked like a normal person,” Pol said, with a shrug. She was wrapped up in a sizable coat, and rightly so for the day was as wintry as ever.</p><p>“The door is unlocked, Pol. The door is fucking unlocked and you know that. You can't come banging like that, people are asleep around here and not that it's subtle either,” Kat rebuted. Standing aside, she gestured to her to come in. With a sigh and a grunt she herself retreated inside. “What the hell are you doing here, anyway? You were supposed to come by the club.”</p><p>Her friend followed, and her dæmon, who joined the other, still sleepy bird.</p><p>“Yes, I was…” Pol started.</p><p>“But?”</p><p>“But I'd rather not risk that, if I'm honest. So, I took my chances you were home.”</p><p>“Oh?” Kat wondered from the distance of the sleeping nook at the stern of the boat, the sound of her voice muffled by a sweater she was pulling over her head and over the chemise that failed to preserve the warmth of the bed sheets. The fire in the stove had died some time ago and her limbs hardened in the gust of cold air which they had let in.</p><p>“I take it you found something awfully interesting, then?” she said as she emerged again.</p><p>Pol sat down on the sofa, swiping bread crumbs off the mattresses first. She looked worried and unusually fearful. Only now Kat realised that her hands were empty and she had no bag on her. Her heart sank in disappointment.</p><p>“I did… In a way,” Pol said.</p><p>“Well?”</p><p>“Offer me a drink, first?”</p><p>“It's eight in the morning,” Kat said, but didn't mean it as a reproach. It provoked a remark anyhow:</p><p>“<em>You </em> never seemed to mind the hour.”</p><p>Without a further word, but with an expression of slight abashment, Kat opened a cabinet under the sink and leaned in. “Gin?” she asked.</p><p>“Gin'll do.”</p><p>Kat pulled the half-drank bottle, washed and readied a glass, then out of habit reached for another. Only the weight of her dæmon's disdain stopped her from pouring it full of the clear liquid. She sensed everyone's glare on her; or imagined it, anyway. Her fingers grew stiff.</p><p>She fussed over the counter, handed Pauline her drink--from which the woman immediately took a big swig--and for herself eventually took a cup of coffee brewed the morning before. It was bleak, and stale, and awfully bitter.</p><p>“What's wrong, Pol?” Kat asked.</p><p>“I've got nothing.”</p><p>“What do you mean, nothing?”</p><p>“I mean, I got this…,” Pol reached inside her coat and produced a single, crumpled up newspaper clipping. “There was supposed to be more, but there isn't.”</p><p>“You're not making sense.”</p><p>“I had pulled the index card with his name from the press directory, as you asked me to. There were more references to various issues of print, but when I looked… Except for this column… there's nothing.”</p><p>“What do you <em> mean</em>, nothing? How can there be <em> nothing</em>?” In a moment of upset Kat thumped the cup against the counter. The beverage it held erupted and left stains on both the surface, and her skin and clothes.</p><p>Startled by this, both bird-dæmons sought refuge on the backrest of the sofa, out of her reach.</p><p>“The precise issues we need are missing, and more. I tried asking around why that might be, but everybody just sort of shooed me away, like it was not their problem, and… Then I remembered we've had an inspection from the Committee for the Propagation of the True Faith last year, very shortly after the congress in Geneva and I connected the dots--they do this sometimes y'know, information tends to disappear when they need to… accommodate the publicly accessible content,” Pol said, hanging her head in what could be shame, though she was probably just confused. She drained her drink. </p><p>“So, you're basically telling me that the Magisterium walked into the library and removed whatever print they deemed unsuitable in connection to their current representatives.”</p><p>“I'm afraid so. Can't see why the pieces would be missing otherwise. That's why I didn't want to do this in a public place, y'see. I don't need trouble.”</p><p>Flabbergasted, Kat sat down beside her. The attempt on censorship itself wasn't as shocking; more so the notion that her suspicions about the Commissioner were showing to be true, that he was a very careful person. And now, after her encounter with the man the previous evening, she also had to give it to Olivia, a very dangerous one.</p><p>“We can have the press pulled at another institution,” Atticus suggested, perched between the two women.</p><p>Pol gave a sigh. “No, we can't. I've checked with some people I know: it's the same all over London, the whole country probably. Even if it weren't, you'd have to travel all the way to Manchester or Edinburgh to have a reliable access to nationwide press directories and--”</p><p>“--we don't have time or opportunity for that, yes,” Kat affirmed, rubbing palms frantically in hope to relieve the stinging of nerves underneath her skin.</p><p>“There's at least this, it's very basic knowledge, but not entirely useless,” Pol said, smoothing out the clipping. With it, she handed over a page torn out of a notepad. “And I've copied out the index card for you. I know you've connections I could only dream of, maybe you'll find some use for it.”</p><p>Kat took it and gave the clipping a quick read.</p><p>It was a piece from <em> Varsity</em>, the independent student newspaper for the University of Cambridge, on the young Lawrence Hazlett acquiring funds for his graduate research. He was a History and Philosophy student, apparently, majoring in History of theology. Printed with the article was a photogram of the twenty-something Commissioner, and even through the considerable grain of the old print his features could be recognized with certainty. This only confirmed what she already presumed--that he was a secular man, a Scholar even, but with a long-standing interest in the Church, and probably also of deep Faith.</p><p>Then, her eyes ran over the notes. The list of mainly mainstream newspapers fell far short of her expectations.</p><p>Except maybe one thing.</p><p>Kat pointed with her finger. “Wait, this… <em> Veritas Vincit</em>. This is a banned print, a samizdat of the Hussite reformed confession. If the CCD found this on you, they could throw you behind bars for heresy. How did this come to be in the directory?”</p><p>Pol drew breath and after a short silence, she said: “The interest exception from the <em> Regulation of Freedom of thought, conscience, and religion</em>; I imagine. Institutions designated to keep the nation's records have an exception in acquiring and archiving banned print, under the condition of not making it publicly accessible or distributing it further. For legal and historical reasons.”</p><p>“You store it, but no-one can read it?”</p><p>“Well, not no-one, persons with a permit can.”</p><p>“So, the Magisterium.”</p><p>“Mainly, yes. But also Scholars and Civil servants.”</p><p>Kat hummed. Instead of the occupied hand, she caressed her chin. “How'd you come by it, as an institution I mean? These things are distributed with <em> very special </em> care among the members.”</p><p>“Oh, God knows, if he does. It could be found, passed on by the police or the CCD… we even had some issues sent to us anonymously by post.”</p><p>“Right,” Kat said to acknowledge Pol's reply, though she wasn't quite listening. She stared at the two pieces of paper in her hand with intent. The smothering sensation of an upcoming anxiety was melting away. “Right…”</p><p>“I was right, wasn't I? You know someone who can help accessing this print,” said Pol, noticing her friend's enlivened enthusiasm.</p><p>“I just might, yes.”</p><p>“And you think this particular one might be important?”</p><p>“Why would a periodical of a reformed confession mention the name of a man who grew to become a leader of the Church they oppose, and cardinal in his Faith, as it seems?”</p><p>“He might be a secret supporter.”</p><p>Kat bobbed her head. “<em>Or </em> a very particular enemy.”</p><p>Pol wriggled under her coat; her mouth twitched. She drew the garment closer to her body to fight off the cold and a feeling of discomfort. Drem, sat on the backrest by her head, fluttered his feathers. He grew big and intimidating.</p><p>“What have you gotten yourself into?” Pol asked.</p><p>Letting the notes fall onto the coffee table, Kat reached for a cigarillo tin and a lighter lying there. Her stare was set into the distance as she brought a smoke between her parted lips, and while Pol did the same, she lit it. She too huddled herself up and brought her dæmon to hold over her heart for consolation and more warmth.</p><p>Kat now stared at her friend with wide eyes. Over a curling mist rising to the ceiling, she said:</p><p>“I don't know, Pol… I've really no idea.”</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. In the Regions of Belief</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p><b>TW:</b> Once again, because this is a heavily Magisterium-oriented story, there are some <b>minor hints at police / regime brutality</b> within this chapter, so proceed with caution. I don't think that it's too awful, but a sentence or two might feel a little graphic if you squint.</p><p>The chapter title is a poem by Ben Howard. Thank you all for reading and your messages!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> London, January 2006 </em>
</p><p>The newest lead on Hazlett has hit too close to home, at least geographically, and it left Kat uneasy. She stared at Pol's notes for hours on end.</p><p><em> Veritas Vincit</em>. Pravda vítězí. Truth prevails.</p><p>The motto and rallying cry of the Hussites.</p><p>As an independent religious movement, the Hussites had been founded in the fifteenth century, some hundred years before the Magisterium had been even introduced as a concept, and were named after the Bohemian theologian Jan Hus: the first clergyman to ever attempt a reform of the Holy Church. </p><p>Witnessing rising occurrences of corruption and nepotism within the ruling structures of the Church and elsewhere, Hus questioned both the papal and secular authority, emphasised freedom of speech and equal participation of the laity in church leadership, and had thus quickly become a thorn in the Pope's side. With the blessing of the enraged King of Bohemia, he was later burned at a stake for his heretical teachings, and for hundred and fifty years the scattered groups of his followers had practised their liturgy in secrecy.</p><p>Only under the reign of the enlightened emperor Rudolf II of the Holy German-Austria Empire, not solely Hussites, but all the movements that sprang up after Jan Hus' death all over Central Europe, were promised to be recognized as a legitimate body of the newborn Magisterium and to be united once and for all under what was to become the Confessio Bohemica. The emperor signed a mandate, but had died sooner than the confession could be officially admitted. His successor, Frederick II, a man not only cruel but also devout to the Magisterium in every respect, blamed the legalization of the Confessio on Rudolf's poor state of mind and had discontinued its existence at once.</p><p>The movement had formally dissipated, but its disciples have never forgotten. Throughout the years, the Confessio Bohemica had become a prominent underground organization, which has for years been advocating for the freedom of conscience of individual believers, and whose members were being hunted down like dogs to this day by the CCD. And because of the growing authority of the Magisterium over what was presently The German Electorates and Austro-Hungary, many of the leaders, now branded religious dissidents, have either immigrated or had been exiled to Brytain and the Isles, or even farther west to New Denmark and New France.</p><p>Adopting the schemes of the past, the organization had been split into smaller cells according to their confession. In London several of these could be found--the Moravian Church and the Church of Brethren had their seats in the city, as did the Hussites--and if one happened to know the right people, one knew where to go.</p><p>So, on that Tuesday evening, Kat found herself walking the streets of Camden Town.</p><p>From the Chthonic Railway station she ran along the Regent's Canal to the bridge on Gloucester Avenue, crossed the waterway, and with quick steps continued up north. Atticus circled above her, above the one- and two-storey houses, and kept an eye out for trouble, which they could run easily into in this part of the city. She did her best to be swift, but felt like moving through sea waves; the sleep-deprived nights and food-deprived days started to manifest on her body. She felt like her face looked: saggy. Her eyes were lined red, shoulders were collapsed, back crooked. Only sharp thing about her was the mind, thankfully, though on account of perhaps too many black coffees and a slightly over-sugared tea.</p><p>At the corner of a long block of council housing Kat turned from the main street and into an inner courtyard already darkened by nightfall. She stopped in front of what looked like the back of a brick factory building or a warehouse--flat roofed, with a single tiled sill splitting the facade, two heavy wooden doors, and with large windows painted white to prevent unwanted snooping. Shimmer of light could be seen through the cracks in paint, as people moved about inside.</p><p>Kat walked up to the entry on the left and before Atticus could settle with her, she knocked six times. A peeping hole upended up; a pair of long-lashed eyes appeared. Then, the door opened to reveal a girl, very young, probably not older than seventeen.</p><p>“Aright, Badge,” the teenager greeted. She stepped aside so that Kat could enter, then promptly closed the door and locked it, and in a lazy strut shuffled away without waiting for, or requiring any answer.</p><p>They found themselves standing in the middle of a characterless hall: granite floor, a staircase leading two stories up, meaningless pictures hanging on the walls, minimally furnished. Nothing to give away the true nature of the people to whom this building offered refuge. From an open doorway to their left, to where the girl headed, came a hum of voices. Kat walked closer to have a peep. Atticus let himself be carried on her wrist. First, she thought she was looking at the church congregation in prayer. But not a moment later she realized she knew most of the folk from elsewhere, the faces were more or less notorious, and it sure was odd to see them here in the Hussite house in such large numbers. She looked about with a little more consideration.</p><p>The room was so full of people, it was hard to tell their surroundings: humans and their various dæmons sat on the ground, were propped against walls and the painted windows, leant against one another. All were listening to a woman stood at the far end, who read passionately from a battered, pocket-sized paperback book. Kat listened and her jaw hardened on instinct when she recognized the piece. It was a text which was so looked down upon, so forbidden, that when it was introduced into this world some eighty years back, during the Swiss War, with the Church's dominance over some provinces absolute, the punishment equalled having a finger broken--one for as much as being in the possession of it, another for reading the words out loud in what legally passed as public gathering--on top of being imprisoned for months, or worse.</p><p>A warm breath brushed against Kat's cheek. She felt the skin crawl at the back of her neck; she bobbed her head, and blinked, but her heavy feet remained planted in place.</p><p>“Evening, comrade,” a man said to her in a low voice, who was settled at the side of the doorway.</p><p>A tide of nerves rushed through her limbs before she recognized him, then it disappeared with the next exhalation. She relaxed, reacted with a hint of apathy even. “Freddie,” she acknowledged in a tone matching her demeanour. She gave him a lazy look, as did Atticus. The bird then turned his attention back to the speaker, unbothered by his presence.</p><p>“I almost didn't recognize you,” the man continued, his words cumbersome because of an obtrusive Brummie accent. He was a thin guy, clearly a unionist by the look of his garb, with a weathered face, untidy beard, and breath reeking of whisky. His dæmon was a large dog of a peculiar sort, a mongrel just like her man. Kat wasn't familiar with her name, even though they were a pair that was hard to avoid within certain social circles and she kept bumping into them more often than she would've liked.</p><p>“Yeah, I get that a lot,” Kat said.</p><p>“You all right? I bet Tom that you was rotting in prison or at the bottom of the cut.”</p><p>“Clearly, I am neither.”</p><p>“And--?”</p><p>“I'm fine. Thanks for asking.”</p><p>He nodded, then fell into silence to let the sound of the speaker's voice reach them, then asked Kat quietly, “Still in service of the bastard state?”</p><p>She responded with a reproachful grin. “This again? You ask me every time as if one had a choice in this day and age.”</p><p>“Ah. But you have, eh.”</p><p>“Do I?”</p><p>“Oh, yes. Offer your service to the people?” he suggested with a frown.</p><p>“The people,” Kat scoffed. She stroked Atticus, who she could tell was listening to every word of their exchange, even though his eyes were set on the room. “As previous experience showed us, the people can't do <em> shit</em>, Fred, not without the support from above.”</p><p>“Ech,” he groaned. “The people can do <em> everything </em> without the support from above, you only need to show them how. We could use you, y'know. It would do you much better than slaving away for that bitch Olivia. The likes of us must stick together.”</p><p>The smile vanished from her face and she leaned in, lowering her tone a notch. “I'll stop you right there, mate. You're an agitator and a terrorist, and I've told you before not to align yourself with me. Do not make me repeat that again.”</p><p>“Say so. There was times not so long ago when you too used to rally against the system. Now you work for them, what's up with that! Has the girl started to crave money and power? You want to be like them now, is that it?”</p><p>“No!” she cried at once.</p><p>Freddie gave her a triumphant grin, just as ugly as him.</p><p>Kat gritted her teeth and opened her mouth. She really wanted to spit something meaningful at him, but as it turned out, she couldn't find the right words. And she couldn't find them, because there weren't any that would not be lies.</p><p>“What is it you believe in these days, then, eh?” Freddie said.</p><p>Kat groaned.</p><p>Belief, Faith, Ideology. There were times when she thought these to be pretty straightforward concepts, today they somehow managed to complicate her life's ordinary course with a constant nagging need to self-doubt.</p><p>I got tangled up in it, she thought.</p><p>“Girl found she needed to eat,” she said eventually, looking down and picking her dæmon's feathers. Atticus rolled his eyes up in pity.</p><p>Freddie clicked his tongue and shrugged. “Whatever, bab. Hope you won't regret your decisions once the cops come a-knocking on your doors.”</p><p>She knew he meant well, but for a reason she didn't want to let on--and it being that deep down she agreed with him and felt ashamed for it--she noticed her breath and hands shaking with a dangerous degree of animosity, so she let his advice go by with complete disregard, and instead asked:</p><p>“Is anybody of importance upstairs?”</p><p>The man gave a faint laugh. “They all are, but not in a mood to meddle, so be nice.”</p><p>Kat breathed an almost inaudible <em> yeah</em>, and waved Fred off.</p><p>The sound of labour led her upstairs to a set of doors--the chatter, clicks of typewriter keys, the unidentifiable thuds and clanks, the soft rustle of paper. Other than the clamor, nothing else indicated that behind them resided an underground publishing company and the editorial office of one of London's countless independent newspapers.</p><p>Kat had only been within those rooms once, a long time ago, but guessed not much had changed since: she imagined the commotion of journalists running from desk to desk in a hurry to meet deadlines; the intoxicating scent of chemical baths inside the dark rooms; the small but still impressive newsprint presses churning out pamphlets, brochures, even bulletins on themes, which some ecclesiastical officials couldn't fathom and which would make the hairs on their heads stand in horror.</p><p>With her dæmon on her arm she picked an entry and knocked, and was at once admitted by a lad of about her own age, dressed smartly in a shirt and sweater vest. She didn't know him.</p><p>“Who are you? What do you want?” he asked with much more hostility in his voice than what Kat would've appreciated.</p><p>He had a familiar accent, so she tried to greet him in Czech. He immediately pricked up his ears and his expression softened somewhat, and she continued in the same language, “Sorry to bother you. I'm looking for either Petr or George Paxton, the editor in chief?”</p><p>“You have an appointment?” he barked, also in Czech, and gave her a once-over.</p><p>“I'm afraid not, but it's just a quick request. It won't take long, promise.”</p><p>“What's your name?”</p><p>“It's Kat. Kat Miller.”</p><p>With that he left her waiting, alone.</p><p>She didn't count a whole minute before another man came out of the offices, this one a little older, in his late forties, but similarly clean-cut. His face was bespectacled and dashing, with an ample nose, and the skin of a deep umber.</p><p>“George, hi!” Kat said, in English.</p><p>“Miller, what an occurrence!” Paxton exclaimed. He tried to embrace her clumsily with one arm, for around the other he had wrapped a small, scaled creature. His dæmon had the form of a White-bellied pangolin, which Kat admired the most about him and was sometimes also most jealous of--she gave the impression of toughness and imperviousness, and Kat adored that.</p><p>“To what do I owe the pleasure? Hope you have anything good for me!”</p><p><em> Always chasing a story</em>, Kat thought, amused. Just like when they had first met, at that pretentious college party in Westminster too long ago, where she had gone in hope to sell her secrets for bread money and get a little tipsy on complimentary champagne. Paxton's eager ear found her loud mouth halfway through an avant-garde violin concerto--she remembered, because she lamented to him often about it ("I missed the best part of the Shostakovich!" she would remind him)--and since then whenever she had an exclusive, he would be first in line to hear it. And pay handsomely for it too, though that never was a reason for her. She went to him, because she marvelled at his talent for writing and a knack for uncovering injustice, which could have landed him a job at the best press houses in the country. But because one circumstance in history or another inspired his predecessors to adopt the reformed faith, here he was. To her luck.</p><p>“Not today I'm afraid, George,” she said with a smile.</p><p>“Fair enough,” Paxton said. “But then get to business--you might have noticed we're a bit busy here. What is it you need?”</p><p>Kat explained, omitting certain details as not to reveal her hand too early. The pangolin climbed up George's arm in a hasty move and settled on his shoulders, her tail coiled around his neck. Her head was primed and eyes gawked at the woman and her bird as she listened with interest.</p><p>“A'right. So let me get this straight,” Paxton said when Kat finished, “You need access into our press repository, because the Church had removed <em> Veritas </em> from the public resources?”</p><p>“Yes, you think you could find such an old issue?”</p><p>“That's not the question.”</p><p>“No?”</p><p>“No, the question is: what information are you looking for <em> exactly</em>, that the Church would have it censored and how much trouble is it worth?”</p><p>“Can't say,” she started, though sensing an immediate defiance on his side, she was quick to add, “Yet.”</p><p>Paxton gazed at her from under his brow and over his gold-rimmed glasses; a powerful gaze, cajoling, which often broke through the guard of much tougher men and women.</p><p>Kat scoffed over a smirk and rubbed her eyes. “It <em> might </em> be about the High Council.”</p><p>He liked the sound of that.</p><p>“If it's good, it's yours,” she promised.</p><p>“Well, in that case… Follow me.”</p><p>With a sigh Paxton peeked back inside, announced to be back in a minute, then Kat followed him down the stairs again, letting Atticus fly free behind. The man dragged his feet from step to step, hands in pockets.</p><p>“I see you're housing the anarchists again,” Kat said as they went, to open small talk and appease her curiosity.</p><p>“Anarchists, socialists, evangelicals, even conferences on Experimental Theology for the Oxbridge Scholars. We're currently one of the two last community centers standing and occupy the biggest space. Luckily and unfortunately,” Paxton admitted as he advanced down, his posture slumped, like a wilted flower.</p><p>“Wait,” Kat said. “One of two? I thought there were at least four or five.”</p><p>Paxton continued through the hall and to the basement; down another flight of stairs. He let out a snort, the sound of which merged with a guitar melody coming from the room on the ground floor. “Then you're pretty out of touch. The South Merton safehouse got raided the week before last, as did the commune in Swindon. The communes especially are too popular nowadays, it was easy to get to them,” he said and led them all the way down.</p><p>Kat felt concern wash over her. “State Police or the CCD?” she said.</p><p>“The CCD.”</p><p>Thank God, Horowitz was not falling into a deeper pit of shit, then.</p><p>She blew her cheeks in relief with a loud huff, but still she managed to conceal it from Paxton just fine. He was too preoccupied to notice anway, busying himself with the lightswitch. Kat blinked into the light of an awful fluorescent tube and her mouth opened ajar.</p><p>She expected the repository to be an office-like den and a whole lot of bookshelves, instead Paxton brought them into a damp storeroom filled with nothing but boxes of paint and crates of press paper resting upon a bleak linoleum.</p><p>“Where--?” she said.</p><p>“Come help me with this,” George pleaded over her unspoken question, standing at the side of a selected crate. Together they pushed it aside to reveal cuts in the lino, part of which he promptly removed, and right away Kat understood.</p><p>Paxton opened a makeshift hatch in the wooden floor and climbed a ladder down into a secret space underneath the cellar. She followed with a childish excitement.</p><p>The room was a dump. Small and crude, walls crooked and plastered in a sloppy way, and the air inside smelled of earth and mould, if one was to speak of any air at all. Three sides were mounted with cases heaving under decades of documentation--the Hussites had to be struggling with capacity, as the paperwork was all tightly stacked. Otherwise it was empty. And suffocating.</p><p>“Right. I can't guarantee the issue you're looking for is here, but you're free to try and look. Marie, our archivist, likes to keep things nice and simple, usually organizes things alphabetically, so I guess you'll find the <em> Veritas Vincit </em> somewhere down there,” Paxton said and pointed his finger into the darkened depths of one corner, nudging Kat with his shoulder in the process for there wasn't much space for two adults and their dæmons, however petite they might have been. “I'll wait outside, if you don't mind.”</p><p>“It's fine, don't let me hold you up,” Kat said, but to her own delight and his surprise she joined him within the next five minutes, emerging victorious from the hole in the ground with Atticus on her shoulder, squawking loudly, and a yellowed stack of papers in her hand.</p><p>“You found it!” Paxton rejoiced.</p><p>“I did. You give Marie my best regards, she <em> does </em> keep things tidy.”</p><p>Paxton cleared some more clutter from the top of one of the crates and Kat spread the journal over it.</p><p>The publication was made of limp paper and was printed in offset; the cover empty apart from the letters VV printed in a basic, bold-serifed type. She carefully browsed the pages and skimmed the texts, all type-written in Czech: stories covering missionary work in Levant, an Agony Aunt section, interpretations of the Holy Book…</p><p>Her eyes sought for the precise combination of letters. Where was he?</p><p>“On page five!” Atticus said and his needle-sharp claws shuffled on Kat's shoulder.</p><p>There he was alright, on page five, his name woven into an article titled <b>Tyranny and Indoctrination Continues</b>.</p><p>Kat snatched the journal off of the crate and buried her face into it, much to Paxton's dismay.</p><p>It was a short account, though what it lacked in word count, it made up in the number of atrocities on which it reported: persecutions of the Hussite brothers and sisters under false allegations all over Bohemia, Moravia, and Germany, and even as far as Switzerland. Unjust trials; manipulated press releases. Attempts to criminalize independent intellectuals who made the catastrophic mistake of publishing their sentiments against the Holy Church, and to suffocate the lay public with fear and isolate the group from the community. Beaten up and missing people; people who will not ever recover from a trauma that had been inflicted on them. And at the end of it, a medal for merit and a pat on the back from the Magisterium for a Lawrence Hazlett, the Envoy to the League for the Instauration of the Holy Purpose, who was culpable for it all--or accomplished by cause of it, but that was dependent on who you asked.</p><p>Kat tasted coffee and bile in the back of her throat.</p><p>“He's a--” Atticus screeched, but her own stuttering breath choked his words down. She felt an awful sense of bitter dread shaking her dæmon's body, and a prickle of nerve behind her numbed face. Her fingers grew stone-cold and stiff under the soft paper.</p><p>“I'm afraid so,” Kat said.</p><p>“What? What is it?” Paxton asked gingerly. The pangolin clung to his shoulder, but she craned her neck so in her desire to see that her front paws barely touched her man anymore. Her slight head hovered over the journal like a serpent's.</p><p>Kat looked up. In a sudden outpouring of genius, she asked, “George… have you ever heard of a League of St Alexander?”</p><p>This startled him. “Uh, I'm surprised you didn't, actually. They were active about the time you were in elementary school.”</p><p>“I didn't attend elementary in Brytain.”</p><p>“Oh, right… I forget. Well, they were a… how to put it. It was an awful business, really. They recruited kids in schools to report heretical behaviour: I specifically remember, because we'd written a feature on it. Large numbers of teachers and parents ending up in court hearings, even imprisoned, as a result of their operation. Basically, their main aim was to build an artillery of future Inquisitors and to convert as many poor souls as they could take. Many of the little ones ambitious enough went on to have a career in the Magisterium.”</p><p>She scowled at him, then her eyes turned back downward. Instead of the <em> Veritas</em>, the text from <em> Gazette </em> floated in front of her clear as day <em> … previously known in Anglia as a </em> prime member <em> of the now defunct League of … </em></p><p>Fuck. It was all coming together.</p><p>“What does it have to do with anything?” George wondered, his eyes planted on the journal, impatient to read it. But Kat still clung to it with a hopelessly firm grip, fingers clasped around it like those of a dead man locked in <em> rigor mortis</em>.</p><p>“Everything,” she said and balled her fist tighter still.</p><p>In an attempt to lift the spell and get her moving, Atticus said, “We must go to the club, at once. And then to--”</p><p>“Yes,” Kat silenced him, then turned to Paxton. “Thank you, for this, George. As it seems, I <em> do </em> have something good for you tonight.”</p><p>He folded his arms across his chest and made a small expression which she found hard to read, between excitement and irritation. From inside her jacket Kat pulled the newspaper clipping from Pol. She smoothed it over the <em> Veritas Vincit</em>, now crumpled beyond recall, and offered both pieces of print to him. He took them with a hesitant hand.</p><p>“You'll understand when you read this,” Kat said, then patted his shoulder with an open palm and brushed a glance over the secret repository. “But if you're gonna go after it, I'd suggest you dig up a <em> much </em> bigger hole to hide in.”</p><p>***</p><p>Like Atticus suggested, their first stop had to be at the <em> Row</em>. Olivia needed the information they had discovered, and she needed it before she did something that might needlessly endanger her. Then, they would go straight to Godwin.</p><p>While they visited the Hussite house, the sky started to weep.</p><p>It snowed thinly and it rained, and a wind raged that pressed into Kat's back and forced her to walk so fast her muscles hurt. When she took a turn and entered the club's resident street, it had gotten almost insufferable.</p><p>Atticus was now zipped up inside her jacket and Kat had her head wrapped in the warm scarf, but the gusts of cold have found their way through to her skin nevertheless. The wind pushed her almost as if it were meant to sweep her off this world, and by the look of the deserted alleyway, it must have succeeded in its course with at least half of London's population. The remaining folk were passing them by with expressions of either general misery or capitulation.</p><p>She only had yards to cross, could see the club in the distance, the neon at the entrance emanating an aura of ominous red light, when a voice startled her out of her senses:</p><p>“Spare a dime, miss?"</p><p>"Christ--!" </p><p>What she previously thought to be a trash bag propped against the wall in the middle of the street or a pile of bricks, she actually found to be a man--a really small man in fact. Not shrunk in his old age, but… <em> little</em>. He was all wet, huddled in an enormous black raincoat. The mop of salt-and-pepper curls that framed his face dripped water, his large eyes were all glossy, and cheeks puffed and reddened as in a fever. The most curious thing about him was a pointed cap, which was simply too big for him, decorated with a black and green feather: how that managed to stay in place in this godawful weather was as mystifying as the man's overall persona. He had no dæmon near him that Kat could see, but given the raging elements she supposed it was hidden; huddled up somewhere inside that ridiculous coat.</p><p>“Pardon?” she asked as she stopped dead in her tracks for the wind carried his words away too hastily.</p><p>“I say, spare a dime, miss?” the man repeated, his voice acute and shrill like the sound of a fiddle. He extended an arm towards her, gathering snowflakes in the hollow of his palm.</p><p>She stared, dumbstruck. Atticus did, too, peeking his disheveled head through a hole in the zipper--but unlike Kat, he showed recognition towards the man, which she had no means of understanding. She felt reverence from her dæmon that wasn't natural to him, as well as humility and a sense of privilege, and all this made her heart buzz.</p><p>The little man shook his hand.</p><p>“Oh, right. Right… Why the hell not,” Kat said and reached inside her breast pocket to fish out a handful of shillings. She looked at the coins and paused, then out of the back pocket of her trousers pulled a fiver, and placed it all into the man's palm. The banknote got soaked instantly. “There you go, sir.”</p><p>“Bless, young miss!” He beamed and nodded approvingly. His arm disappeared back under the cloak and he resumed his bundle-like pose.</p><p>Even afterwards the little stranger kept eyeballing her and so Kat dawdled, towering above him awkwardly, waiting for him to speak, or to leave, or to do something--anything. This went on for a while, before she herself broke the silence:</p><p>“All right… Um, listen. You shouldn't be sitting here in this weather. You're all wet and the night's gonna be freezing. What I gave you is enough for a bed and a meal at the White Horse inn, down two streets--it's not much, but at least it's dry. Ask for Frank and tell him I've sent you.”</p><p>His mouth extended into a pleased grin. “Very thoughtful of you, miss, but I do not mind the wet, same as you.”</p><p>Kat frowned. What a strange thing to say--although not inaccurate, which only made it stranger. Atticus shuffled under the jacket; the little man widened his smile.</p><p>“Also, I'm always warm!” he continued in a cheerful manner. “But I am delighted that you should think of my comfort in your own discomfort and haste, miss Kat.”</p><p>She shrunk away in a blow of confusion. The subtle line of a scowl in her brow grew into a grimace. “Do I know you?”</p><p>“In a way, I suppose you do. We even met face to face a few times, though you hadn't paid me any attention, other than a little thought of contempt--which I guess is alright and I forgive you for it; hard to consider the turmoil outside with so much of it inside one's head.”</p><p>Kat squinted into the night.</p><p>Her mind strained to place him, to no avail. Just a ghost of a memory in the back of her head: like it wasn't even hers, rather a thread of a feeling loose from the fabric of her consciousness. Atticus seemed to have a much better grasp at it all, though he wouldn't let it slip, as if the meaning was only intended for him. The little man quipped on:</p><p>"You have traveled from the south to the north and from the east westward, and that is also my favourite direction to wander. So, yes, we have met on occasion, though you wouldn't remember me over the experience of life."</p><p>
  <em> From the south to the north and from the east westward. </em>
</p><p>Her eyes grew large and her lips parted, mouth wrapped around a mute <em> Oh</em>. Then, unintentionally, she snickered.</p><p>She <em> did </em> know him, now that she came to think about it. The cap and the feather, his rosy, child-like cheeks, and his perplexing speech: he came straight out of a secret commonwealth story of Master Brabandt's! Or at least made a great effort to look like it. Was he an actor, an entertainer gone astray? He <em> was </em> being awfully clever with his words; like Ma Koopman when she needed to lure a copper or two from a trusting landloper hungry after the idea of a predictable future; like the soothsayers from the Spring Fair. Was this a practical joke?</p><p>Atticus stiffened at the thought, but before he could protest against it, Kat said, “Did someone pay you to sit here and wait for me? Are my friends trying to prank me?”</p><p>The little gentleman looked daggers at her. “What do you mean, prank you? Prank you how?”</p><p>“Is someone trying to make fun of me because I said that I believed in fairies the other day?”</p><p>He looked her up and down, down and up, and the corners of his mouth dropped until he resembled one of the plastered <em> mascarons </em> of miserable Fauns with which the building above him was adorned. After a considerable intermission he said, tone peppered with indignation:</p><p>“You beseech Isis and Old Father Thames to keep your boat afloat, but you have nothing but belittlement for poor old Southeast Wind?”</p><p>“How do you know that I--” she started, but didn't know how to continue. “Are you really--? I mean, <em> could </em> you be--?”</p><p>His expression deepened. “<em>Could </em> I be, now? And she says she believes in fairies! Bah, I call your bluff! You're just as earth-minded as any of them!”</p><p>The little gentleman jumped to his feet, the tip of his cap hardly reaching the top of Kat's head, and he did so with such energy that she had to step back. His anger was now palpable, as it was apparent now, that--</p><p>“He has no dæmon,” Atticus said, feverish at her breast, but she could see that for herself already. If he had, she would have long come out on his guard. Kat broke sweat. Yet for a reason she wasn't frightened of him, apart from his furious yelling, just hesitant. Because he wasn't like the severed gyptian kids from the Fens. He <em> felt </em> different.</p><p>“I think you should probably be going,” the little man said, and at the same time, somehow, the wind had gotten more disagreeable, almost as if to force her away on his demand. It had also become warmer around her feet.</p><p>“But--” Kat said, trying to understand and defend herself.</p><p>“This is no good, he's pissed!” Atticus shrieked. “Let's go!”</p><p>“But--!”</p><p>“Begone, before I sweep your feet from under you!” the little man threatened.</p><p>Kat noticed her legs move involuntarily, pushed by the peculiar air.</p><p>“Act on your convictions! Listen to the <em> schreachag choille </em>! He knows better than you...” the stranger called through the roar of the rain and the thickening snow. Was it snow? For it only seemed to be thickening around him: grains of white danced around his darkened figure like minuscule, blinding brilliants. It looked almost… conscious, but surely that was just the tired eyes and lack of drink playing tricks on her mind.</p><p>Flabbergasted, she stumbled through the club's front entrance.</p><p>“<em>What </em> did just happen?” Kat said, breathless, when the door had fallen shut behind them.</p><p>“What did it look like, you dumb cow?” Atticus scolded as he tried to set himself free. He sat on her shoulder and pulled her hair, not even trying to be gentle with it. “Trying to get us killed by sticking your nose into business that is not our own is one thing, but unleashing the wrath of the spirit world, that's a little too much!”</p><p>She shuddered, unsure if on the account of the weather or the experience. She had a million questions on the tip of her tongue; not one did question the authenticity of what they had just seen for her dæmon's confidence in this matter felt absolute and nonnegotiable. She trusted his instincts as well as her own. So, the only question left to ask, however bizarre she found it, was:</p><p>“What would the spirit world want with us?”</p><p>“I think he wanted to warn us about something. That's before you managed to insult him, I mean.”</p><p>“Warn us?”</p><p>“Yes. I… I can't explain it. It's a feeling. But I know it.”</p><p>“What would he want to warn us about, though?”</p><p>“I wonder. Your guess is as good as mine,” Atticus said.</p><p>Kat wondered too.</p><p>She wondered, especially, if it had anything to do with the silence around them. Because once the cries of the wind and the splatter of the rain died down, their surroundings fell into a complete peace, unheard of at the <em> Murderess Row</em>.</p><p>Not the silent, soft tune of a song; not a hushed chatter or a muffled thud of glasses against tables.</p><p>The club was dead quiet.</p><p>But it sure as hell was not empty.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The character of Southeast Wind is based on the Greek <i>Anemoi</i>, specifically <i>Apheliotes</i>, the southeast wind; as well as on Southwest Wind, Esquire from John Ruskin's <i>The King of The Golden River</i>. Because this story is set during TSC, I was hoping to work the secret commonwealth into it and eventually found an important role for it, as well as a wonderful connection to Kat's life journey, and I am happy to say that Southeast Wind will surely make another appearance. I hope the part doesn't seem too... out of place, or exotic. Let me know what you thought!</p><p>The alternative history of the Hussites is based on the real one, of course. That Rudolf II was succeeded by a king named Frederick in Lyra's world is canon information from Pullman's <i>The History of the Alethiometer</i>, which came out on a promotional brochure with an edition of <i>The Amber Spyglass</i>. It can be found on the HDM Wiki.</p><p><i>Schreachag choille</i> means "the screamer of the woods" and it's the Gaelic name for the (Eurasian) Jay.</p>
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